Five Senses
by Little.Miss.Chloe
Summary: Courfeyrac fell in love for the night. Marius fell in love with his heart. But Enjolras wasn't like any of his friends. When he fell in love it would be forever. And when he fell in love it would be with his entire being. One sense at a time. Enjonine (because that's the way I roll.)
1. Chapter One: Love Comes in at the Eyes

_Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me!)  
_ _I do not own Les Miserables, if I did ... everyone would be less miserable._

* * *

So this started out as a one shot. It was this little plot bunny that hopped its way into my head and would not leave. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I absolutely loved the idea of watching Enjolras fall in love one sense at a time. And that is how this happened. The problem was that I was at almost 13,000 words and I had only covered one sense: _Sight_.  
And so now I think it's going to be a five chapter story. (Maybe six, there might be an epilogue if anything feels unfinished or if you guys as politely enough. Assuming anyone wants to read past chapter one.)  
Some things you might find in this story:  
1\. The name Gabriel. Enjolras is never given a first name. I love the idea of Gabriel, especially since that was the name of Aaron Tveit's character in _Next to Normal_.  
2\. Lots of the color red. (You can't have an Enjolras story without red.)  
3\. My first non-OC love story. I would love to give you guys an OC, but I can't. You see Enjolras and Éponine are my OTP. Of all the fandoms I'm a part of (and there are a lot) Enjonine are my entire heart. I will not give either of them someone else because they very clearly belong together.  
Anyway, that's all... without further adieu ...

* * *

 _Chapter One: Love Comes in at the Eyes_

* * *

 _Have you ever seen hell in someone's eyes and loved it?_

* * *

"What are you doing tonight?" Grantaire asked, throwing himself down on the couch next to Enjolras. The blonde man, to his credit, managed not to glare at his friend as he gestured toward the books that covered the table in front of him. _This_ was his plan for the evening, not whatever his friend had planned. No doubt a night of debauchery at whatever bar was Grantaire's new favorite.

His friend sighed as he leaned back into the couch, throwing his feet up on the table and knocking off some of the books to the floor. "R!" Enjolras muttered, shaking his head, "I _need_ those."

"Need them, do you?" Grantaire asked, mocking. "Why?"

"To study," Enjolras muttered, pushing his glasses up his nose so that he could see the page in front of him better. "For the bar exam."

"The one that you won't be taking until June?" Grantaire asked him, a chuckle coloring his tone. "Apollo, it's October! You have time!"

Enjolras rolled his eyes, "I have to be perfect, R," he told his friend. It didn't matter, Grantaire would never understand. Grantaire had never had a plan in his life, and he probably never would. He always just skated by, doing the bare minimum. He didn't care enough to have any expectations for himself and he didn't give a fuck about anyone's expectations of him.

Grantaire rolled his eyes, "I've heard Courf talking about the bar exam," he told him. "You have to score a ten out of twenty on the written. That's hardly perfect. You could probably score that in your sleep."

"I need a better score than ten out of twenty to get a good internship," Enjolras argued, standing up from the couch so that he could move around it to pick up his books.

"You mean to please your parents," Grantaire countered. He shook his head and leaned over to take the book out of Enjolras' hands. "Come on, Apollo. One night is not going to ruin all of that. We're all meeting up at the Musain for a few drinks. It'll be like old times."

"The coffee shop?" Enjolras asked, glancing at the clock on his kitchen wall. "It's nine in the evening."

"You haven't been by lately," Grantaire told him. "They got themselves a liquor license. It's a coffee shop by day and at night they serve alcohol."

"I'd like the idea better if they only served coffee," Enjolras told his friend, trying to grab his book back. "It'd be quieter."

"The point of going out is not for it to be quiet," Grantaire argued.

"I could study," Enjolras countered.

"Or you could get drunk."

Enjolras gave up trying to grab his book from his friend. Instead he picked a different one off his table. Grantaire stole that one too. "I just," he shook his head, "What's the point?"

"To hang out with your friends?" Grantaire asked, "You know the ones that you've been ignoring for the last month."

"It hasn't been a whole month," Enjolras countered, shaking his head.

"I haven't seen you since Bossuet broke his arm," Grantaire told him, his eyebrows raised. "Ferre said that he hasn't seen you since September. Courf says that if it weren't for classes he wouldn't even remember what you look like."

Enjolras felt his lips turn up at the corners in spite of himself, his friends were always a bit dramatic. But perhaps Grantaire had a point. He had been neglecting them recently. And perhaps, he should go out to see them. "Has it really been that long?" he asked, finally glancing up from his books to actually look at his friend. Grantaire pursed his lips and nodded. Enjolras sighed, "What have I missed? Catch me up?"

"I think they would do better at catching you up on their lives than me," the brunette pointed out, "but I'll give you the highlights. When you weren't looking Courf decided that he wanted to practice family law instead of corporate. Ferre got accepted into a surgical residency. Bahorel does not want to be a lawyer anymore. A book editor requested to see some of Jehan's poetry, they want to publish it but Jehan is convinced it's not ready yet, so he did not respond. Bossuet's cast will be coming off in half a month, but he's decided that he wants to join an adult football team that plays on the weekends, so it's only a matter of time before he breaks something else. Feuilly got hired as an adjunct professor at the university. Joly is convinced he has ebola. And Marius is in love."

Enjolras rolled his eyes at the last one, "When is Marius never in love?" he asked.

"He swears it's different this time," Grantaire assured him. "Swears that all other loves pale in comparison to this one, and that he will never love someone as much as her."

"Who is she?" Enjolras asked.

Grantaire shrugged, "Some university girl," he told him. "I've only met her once or twice. He's bringing her tonight. To the Musain. You'll get to meet her. Marius likes her so I'm sure she's nice."

Enjolras raised his eyebrows at that, in his limited experience with women they never liked being described as _nice_. Grantaire smiled at him and nodded toward the hallway that led to his bedroom, "Go change," he ordered his friend.

"What's wrong with this?" Enjolras asked, gesturing toward what he was wearing.

"Nothing," Grantaire assured him. "As long as _stuck up bastard with a stick up his ass_ is the look you're going for?"

Enjolras sighed, wondering why he bothered to put up with his friends. But he stood from the couch and moved toward his room so that he could change. A few minutes later he had traded in his white dress shirt and dark dress pants for a pair of jeans and a red flannel shirt. "Better?" he asked.

Grantaire looked at him for a moment before he shrugged, "I wish you wouldn't look so attractive," he sighed. "All the girls are going to be after you now. None of them are going to have time for me."

"Well maybe if you didn't have food on your shirt and paint on your face," Enjolras suggested as he grabbed one of his law books off the table ( _just in case_ ) and headed toward his apartment door.

"Never mind," Grantaire chuckled. "As long as you're the nerd with the law text book at the bar I will be fine."

...

It took less than twenty minutes for the two friends to walk to the cafe turned bar. On the way there all Enjolras had to do was ask his friend about his latest project. With little more encouragement than a few nods and _mmhmms_ from him Grantaire launched into a long winded, albeit entertaining, story about mural he was planning to tag the city hall with later that month.

Enjolras sighed, Grantaire had such potential when it came to his art. He only wished that his friend would use it for something more than graffiti.

They weren't the first ones from their group at the bar. Marius was already there, sitting on a bar stool next to a brunette girl that Enjolras assumed was the new love of his life. She had her back turned to them, so Enjolras had no idea what the girl looked like, but the way she and Marius were leaning into each other it was clear that they were very close.

 _Jesus_ , he thought to himself with a shake of his head, _I really have been gone for a while_.

Marius caught sight of them over her shoulder and gestured at them to move faster. Then, leaning even closer to the brunette he whispered something in her ear. Enjolras studied people almost as intensely as he studied books. And it was because of this that he did not miss the shiver that ran down the girl's spine when Marius' breath danced over her ear.

She turned to look at them, a smile on her lips and laughter sparkling in her eyes. She looked young, she couldn't be more than eighteen. _Leave it to Pontmercy to rob the cradle_. Her skin was tan, her cheekbones and collarbones were pronounced. Her eyes were the darkest brown he had ever seen. They were almost as dark as the hair that fell down to her mid back in graceful waves and loose curls.

She didn't look as innocent as Enjolras had imagined she would. Knowing the girls Marius had dated in the past he had assumed that she would be blonde, blue eyed, that she would wear minimal make up and way too much pink, most likely in the form of dresses. But this girl was the complete opposite. She was wearing dark jeans and knee high boots, a red crop top that showed off a flat stomach underneath a leather jacket. Her lips were a bright red and she had lined her eyes with perfect cat eye, _was that what Musichetta called it?_ , eye liner. She had several piercings in her ears and a tattoo just below her right collarbone. It looked like a bird.

Whatever he had been expecting when Grantaire said that Marius had a new love ... it was not _this_.

"You got him to come out!" Marius congratulated as he stood up from his stool to throw his arm around Enjolras' shoulders in a one-armed hug. "I owe Courf ten euros."

The girl had stood up from her stool as well, she was studying Enjolras, her gaze starting at his feet and working its way up to the top of his head. There was a hint of mischief in her eyes, "So this is the famous Enjolras?" she asked. "The boys have been promising me for weeks that I'd eventually get to meet you."

"Of course," Marius interjected, moving away from Enjolras so that he could put his hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer to her two friends, "Nina, this is Enjolras. Enjolras, this is my friend, Nina."

Enjolras raised his eyebrows at the word _friend_ , he wondered if Marius had gone and fallen in love with the girl without asking her to be his girlfriend. He had done that once or twice during their university years. It wouldn't be completely unlike him. The girl smiled at Marius, the mischief in her eyes softening into a warmth as she looked at him, "It's Éponine," she told Enjolras, barely looking away from Marius as she held her hand out for him to shake. "No matter what Monsieur Pontmercy tells you."

There was a playful teasing to her tone when she said _Monsieur Pontmercy_ that made her eyes light up.

A moment later she had pulled her hand out of his grasp and turned to Grantaire, "Hello Taire," she grinned at him. "How is my favorite customer?"

Grantaire grinned at her and pulled her into a tight hug, "I bet you say that to all your customers, Ép," he answered, confusing Enjolras as he pulled away from her.

"I do," she told him with a nod. She backed up against the bar, her back facing the bottles of alcohol. She braced her hands behind her on the bar top and pushed, using her own strength to lift herself up onto the top of the bar and then, lifting her legs she spun halfway around and hopped down behind the bar. "But right now I'm only saying it to you." She winked. "So what will it be handsome? The usual?"

Grantaire nodded, "Perhaps only one shot for now though," he told her.

Her dark eyes flashed toward Enjolras, "On your best behavior tonight, huh?" she asked. "That's no fun."

"Wait!" Enjolras whispered, glancing between Éponine and Grantaire, "I thought _she_ was Marius' new girlfriend. You didn't tell me he was dating a bartender."

The smile fell off the girl's lips. A blush rose to her cheeks. She quickly turned, busying herself with pouring Grantaire a glass of bourbon. Grantaire shot the girl a sympathetic look before he shook his head, "Ép?" he asked. "No. She's a bartender. And Cosette's roommate."

"Who's Cosette?" Enjolras asked.

"Marius' girlfriend," the girl told him as she placed Grantaire's glass on the bar. Enjolras turned to look at her, noticing the way her dark eyes almost looked dead. He missed the spark. "What can I get you?" she deadpanned, not meeting his eyes.

"A beer," he told her. "Whatever you recommend." She nodded and turned to move down to the taps to pull him a beer. Before she got very far he reached out and wrapped his hand around her right wrist. _It was so small_. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, he normally did not get involved with people's love lives. But he felt like he needed to say something to this girl to bring back the sparkle to her eyes. "Can I give you some advice?" he asked, not waiting for her affirmative before he continued, "Give up on him. He's not worth it."

When she glanced back up at him the spark was back. But instead of mischief, her eyes were simmering with a quiet anger. "And can I give you some advice?" she asked him, her voice little more than a hiss. "Don't touch me again." Her gaze flicked over him dismissively. "And don't bring a book to a bar."

* * *

 _His eyes shined so impossibly blue that she was sure he had his own sky inside of him._

* * *

She didn't like Marius' friend Enjolras. He was cruel and forward. And he talked about things that he knew nothing about and were honestly none of his business. What did it matter to him who she liked? And how could he say that about someone who was supposedly his friend?

She was sure that all of the group that called themselves _Les_ Amisknew that she was a little bit in love with Marius Pontmercy. But they were all kind enough not to talk about it. At least not in front of Marius. At least not to Éponine's face. In fact, the only two people in the entire group who probably didn't know about her feelings for Marius were Marius and Cosette themselves.

But here comes the _mighty_ , _famous_ Enjolras with his _too_ blue eyes and his unreadable looks and he thinks that he can read her just like that? _No_ , she shook her head. He didn't know what he was talking about.

She didn't smile at him when she brought him his beer like she had smiled at Grantaire when she brought him his bourbon. She barely looked at him, in fact, as she slammed the Cuvée Des Jonquilles on the bar and moved away.

Still, as she served other customers she could feel his gaze on her. And every once in a while she would look up to see his blue eyes focused on her instead of on the book he had opened up on the bar top. She didn't know why he bothered bringing the book if he was going to spend the entire time looking at her, but she didn't really care as long as he didn't talk to her anymore.

Her sister Azelma moved closer to her, twirling a strand of her lighter brown hair around her finger as she watched Marius and his ever growing group of friends. "Who's the new one?" she asked.

" _Enjolras,_ " Éponine sneered, focusing on the glass she was cleaning rather than her sister or the man they were discussing.

Azelma laughed, "That can't really be his name can it?" she asked.

Éponine shrugged her shoulders. "That's what they introduced him as." She glanced down the bar at him, his beer was empty. He didn't seem the type to down an entire pint of beer in one go, but Grantaire was standing next to him, she had a feeling her usually drunk friend had helped him. "Do me a favor and go see if anyone needs another round, will you?" she asked.

Azelma smiled and shook her head, "No can do, Sis," she teased in a sing song voice. "Blue eyes over there seems to be trying to flag you down. And _I_ will not be embarrassed by going down there only to be sent back here to send you."

Éponine sighed, that was an excuse. She knew it. The real reason her younger sister would not go serve the group was because Courfeyrac wasn't there yet. She had had a crush on the man since she had first laid eyes on him. Once he arrived she would be all about embarrassing herself. "Fine," she muttered, "but you're closing up the register tonight."

"I hardly think that's fair," Azelma called after her as she stalked down toward the more crowded end of the bar.

She didn't need to ask Grantaire what he wanted. She poured him two more fingers of bourbon and slid it across the bar to him before she raised her eyebrows at the new one. "Want another?" she asked him, nodding toward his empty glass.

For perhaps the first time since she had snapped at him he wasn't watching her. He had his gaze trained on the book in front of him. But when she spoke he glanced up at her and her breath caught in her throat. She hadn't realized it the first time they spoke, she had been too wrapped up in Marius. And the second time she had been too angry. But she noticed it now.

His eyes were _blue_.

Seriously blue. Almost sickening blue - full on Prince Charming, field of cornflower, perfect cloudless sky blue. "Someone should name a crayon after you," she murmured before she could catch herself.

"Excuse me?" he asked her, raising one of his eyebrows and watching her skeptically.

"What?" she asked, internally cursing at herself for being so stupid as to have spoken out loud. "I didn't say anything? Do you need anything else? Another beer? A highlighter? A reading lamp?" He didn't lower his eyebrow, but the left corner of his lips turned up in a smirk as if he found her amusing. She looked away from him, looking for anyone and anything that could serve as a distraction. "Ah!" she almost screamed when the door to the Musain opened and her roommate walked into the bar. "Cosette's here!"

Her announcement did not serve its intended purpose. Marius looked up from the group and smiled at the pretty blonde who had just walked into the room. He jumped up from his barstool and practically ran to her before pulling her back to his friends. But Enjolras? He never turned his gaze away from her. "Do you always do that?" he asked her after a minute.

"Always do what?" she asked. She knew what he meant. He wanted to know if she always changed the subject every time she was uncomfortable. But that was a stupid question, everyone did that. It wasn't only her.

He smirked at her again and shook his head, "Nothing," he told her. He was quiet for a moment, he turned his gaze back toward his book and Éponine thought that she was safe. She was about to walk away from him when he spoke again. "I don't know about a reading lamp," he started, still not looking up from his book. "But could I get a cup of coffee?"

They didn't normally serve coffee at this time of night. It wasn't so much a rule, as just that no one ever asked for it. But Éponine quickly nodded. "Sure," she told him, not making a move to make the coffee yet. "Not much of a drinker?" she asked, surprised that she was attempting to make conversation with the man that she was pretty sure she still hated.

He shrugged his shoulders, "I've got a lot of studying to do when I get home," he told her, finally looking up from the book on the bar. "I agreed to come out because I knew that R wasn't going to leave me alone until I did. But I never said that I would drink."

Éponine nodded, "Gotcha," she told him, finally looking away, looking for anything to distract her from the bright sky in his eyes. "Right!" she exclaimed after a moment. "Your coffee. Coming right up!"

...

A few hours later the bar had quieted down. They still had an hour until they officially closed up, but all the customers had left besides Les Amis. These were the times that Éponine liked bartending the best. When it was just them. She had sent Azelma back to her dorm more than an hour ago, with the last of the customers ( _But you told me that I had to close the register,_ her sister had argued. Éponine had just smiled and shook her head. Azelma had an early class the next morning, she did not need to be at the bar until two. _I can take care of it,_ she had promised.)

Right now she was leaning across the bar, reading from a crumpled piece of paper. Poor Jehan had written a poem, decided that it was shit, balled it up, flattened it out, read it again, balled it up again, almost ripped it, and finally decided to let her read it before he threw it out. "Why don't you like this?" she asked him, crossing her arms on the bar in front of her and glancing up at the struggling poet with her eyebrows raised.

"Because it's shit?" Jehan asked her, gesturing toward the paper as if reading it a second time would persuade her that he was right. "Complete and utter shit."

"I wouldn't say that," Éponine countered. "I mean maybe this one line, _We stuck together, our love was the glue_. But the rest of it is _really_ good."

"You think?" Jehan asked her, as he pulled the paper closer to him as if to get a better look at it. "I thought that line was complete shit. But perhaps the rest of it isn't so bad."

Éponine smiled at him. Jehan was the youngest of Les Amis. He was still in university while the rest of them were already graduated like Grantaire, or working on their masters. Jehan was a fourth year, one year ahead of her. She knew that a publisher had offered to read some of his poems, but the boy was too afraid to show them to anyone. She had made it her goal by the end of the year to build up his confidence enough so that he would show his work to someone besides her.

She took the paper back from him so that she could read a specific line. "I especially love this line," she told him before she lowered her voice so that she could give him a dramatic reading, "When eyes talk to eyes, all of the world stands still."

Jehan smiled at her, "Time waits and nature listens," he finished the next verse.

Éponine nodded with a grin as she handed the paper back to him. "That part is pure gold, my friend," she assured him.

Jehan grinned back at her before he leaned closer to press a kiss against her cheek, "Thank you, Ép," he told her as he pulled away. "If I ever publish this poem it will be dedicated to you."

Éponine shook her head, "You better dedicate the whole damn book to me, Jehan," she threatened playfully.

As Jehan pulled out his notebook to copy the savable parts of his poem onto smooth, uncreased paper she glanced up to see Enjolras watching her again. His brows were furrowed as if he was trying to figure something out. She would have called it a glare, perhaps, except that his eyes were completely open. They were not narrowed in the slightest.

The room quieted around them and for a moment Éponine could have sworn that they were the only two people in the room. But the moment did not last, she gave her head a shake and suddenly all the voices of the men were back.

It must have been Jehan's poem, she decided. Éponine had never been much of a romantic, except when it came to Marius. But it was impossible sometimes not to get wrapped up in Jehan's beautiful words. _Time waits and nature listens indeed_.

She shook her head again and moved toward the blonde man and his book. "Need something?" she asked him. "Another coffee?"

He shook his head, "I've just never seen anyone reassure him like that before," he murmured, cocking his head to the side and watching her intently. It was as if he was trying to figure her out. As if he thought that if he stared long enough he would know everything about her.

She shrugged her shoulders, "It's not that difficult to reassure him when it's actually good," she told him. "He's a fantastic writer. He just needs a bit of a confidence boost from time to time."

"It's not that," Enjolras told her, shaking his head again. "We all know he's talented. It's how _easily_ you were able to do it. He's never believed me that quickly."

Éponine smiled, "The trick is to find something wrong with the poem before you praise it," she told him. "I learned early on that when I tell Jehan that his work is amazing, that I love every line and every word. He quickly finds something so terribly wrong with the poem that he tears it apart. But if I find something that I don't like, and I tell him that first, he's far more receptive to hearing the rest of the praise that I have for him."

"So you trick him?" Enjolras asked, raising an eyebrow. Éponine wondered if he ever raised both eyebrows at once or if it was always just the one.

She sighed and leaned on the bar, "I had a professor once that told me that when critiquing something you needed to make a compliment sandwich. _This is good, this is something I would change, this is something else that is good_. For most people that formula works. They hear whatever is wrong with their work, but it's softened by the two compliments. This formula doesn't work for everybody. Jehan, who is too critical of his own work needs to know that I will be critical too before he will listen to anything good about the piece." She shrugged her shoulders, "It's not so much a trick as learning which type of critique works best for him."

"You're in school?" Enjolras asked, a light dancing in his blue eyes that hadn't been there before.

Éponine nodded, "Only part time," she told him. "At least for the next couple years. I was full time for first and second year, but my sister Zelma started her first year in September and," she paused and looked away from him, his gaze was too intense for her. "Well, we couldn't afford for both of us to be in school full time, you know?"

When she finally dared to look up and meet his gaze he was no longer smirking at her, his brows were no longer furrowed as if he was trying to figure her out. His jaw was clenched, his shoulders were heavy, his blue eyes had darkened in resignation. Perhaps she had revealed too much, but at least he didn't look pleased with what he had learned.

"And so you dropped down to part time so that your sister could finish university on time?" he asked her.

She nodded and shrugged her shoulders, "She's my little sister," she explained, wondering if he would understand how important that was. "What else was I supposed to do?"

* * *

 _Her eyes were the color of earth kissed by spring rains, the hue that promises to stir life from dormant seeds_.

* * *

He started visiting Cafe Musain more often. Almost every day, in fact. Sometimes it was for drinks with his friends, sometimes it was for a solitary beer after class, but most of the time it was for coffee in the morning or for studying in the afternoon.

Those were his favorite times. When the cafe wasn't as crowded as it was at night. When the only people in it were quietly nursing mugs of coffee. Or having quiet conversations amongst their study groups or a few friends.

If anyone asked him he was going to the cafe more often now because he had just remembered how much it felt like home. He had spent almost every afternoon and evening there when he had been in university. But when he had started his masters degree in law he had left it behind for the younger, more foolish university students. He swore that he hadn't realized how much he missed it until he had allowed Grantaire to drag him back.

But perhaps there was another reason his feet so often carried him to the Musain.

Éponine was the bartender on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The rest of the week she worked there in the mornings before her classes and in the afternoons before seven when they started serving alcohol almost exclusively. Sundays she worked all day.

Over the last few weeks they had developed a bit of a routine. He would walk into the cafe and nod to her behind the counter. And then he'd move toward a large comfy chair in the corner and he would sit down. He liked that chair, it was far enough away from the tables that the study groups and the gossiping university girls did not bother him. And there was a large, low to the ground circular table in front of the chair that he could spread his books out on top of.

She would leave him there for a few minutes. And then once he had really settled in she would bring him over a large mug of coffee. He took his coffee black, the first day she had brought him cream and sugar, but after he had left it untouched she now only brought the mug.

One of the charms of the Musain was that their mugs did not match. It seemed that the owners just went to flea markets and bought whatever mugs caught their fancy. He liked to watch her when someone ordered coffee they intended to drink at the cafe. She'd narrow her brown eyes at them, her nose scrunching as she made a decision, and then she'd pick specific cups to match whatever she had discovered while studying them.

He wondered what she had seen in him that earned him the odd assortment of coffee mugs she had brought him over the weeks.

The first day it had been a black mug with a picture of a white cartoon cat giving the middle finger.

Two days later it was a white mug with a drawing of Jesus dressed as a goal keeper. It said _Jesus saves, but Moses was offside so the goal wouldn't have stood anyway_.

A day later it was a mug shaped like the head of one of the Ninja Turtles, maybe Raphael.

One day it was another white mug that had a picture of a scale on it and the words _Too hot for my ^legal briefs_.

Today it was a blue mug with the Superman logo. "Here you go, Superboy," she told him with a wink as she placed the mug in front of him.

This was a first. Usually she let him sit for an hour before she would talk to him. He looked up from his book, "What?" he asked, a smirk playing at his lips. "I don't even get to be Superman?"

She shook her head as she walked back toward the register, "Nah," she told him. "You haven't earned that one yet."

He liked afternoons at the Musain best because when it was slow and there weren't a lot of customers Éponine would come sit with him. He would never admit this to anyone, especially not her, but she was often a welcome distraction.

It had been looking like it was going to rain all day. and just as she was bringing him a refill in his _Superboy_ mug the sky opened up. Absentmindedly Éponine put his mug down on top of one of his open books as she moved toward the window. "I've always loved the rain," she said, her voice soft. Enjolras wondered if she was speaking to him or herself. She barely turned to look at him, but she shifted slightly in his direction. _Him then_. "It just has a way of making things clean, you know?"

Enjolras shrugged his shoulders, "I was never allowed out much in the rain as a child," he told her, not looking up from the pages in front of him. "Too much mud."

Éponine snorted and turned back to the windows, watching as people ran down the street with umbrellas and newspapers over their heads in an attempt to shield themselves from the sudden rain. "I met Marius when it was raining," she told him, her voice even softer.

Enjolras did not want to look up. He knew what he would see. Her eyes always softened when she spoke about Marius. It would have been pathetic if she weren't so sincere about it. And something about that sincerity always made his chest tighten. But he looked up anyway, and as always, her dark eyes were warm and soft. "I don't see what you see in him, really."

"Of course you don't," Éponine answered back. "People have always been nice to you. They've always been kind to you." She shook her head. "I can count on one hand the number of people who have been kind to me -"

"Les Amis," Enjolras interrupted, he had never seen any of his friends be anything but good to Éponine. And if one of them had been rude to her, he would have spoken to them.

She glanced over her shoulder, her dark eyes narrowing into a playful glare, "If you had let me finish I would have told you I can count on one hand the number of people who have been kind to me _before_ I met Marius and he introduced me to your friends."

Enjolras noticed that she did not seem to include _him_ in the group of her friends. "Who was it?" he asked her. She raised her eyebrows, unsure of what he meant before she turned back to the window. "Who was kind to you?"

"Cosette," Éponine told him, her voice soft. "And her father. And my brother and sister." She shook her head, "That was it until Marius came around."

"So you met Marius in the rain?" he asked. He should have been studying. November was just around the corner and then it was only a matter of seven and a half months until his bar exam. But this girl intrigued him. And a few more minutes of conversation would not ruin his chances at a good score.

She nodded, "He gave me his umbrella," she told him. "I tried to give it back to him, but he refused to take it. So I suggested we share it. I pretended that I was going in the same direction as he was and we walked together." She shook her head, smiling softly at some memory that she was replaying in her head. "He was so awkward, stuttering and stumbling over his words. But I had never met a man so _kind_. At the end of our walk he was looking at me and he told me that he liked my eyes, he said they were friendly and reminded him of mud."

"Mud?" Enjolras scoffed. The worst part was that it did not surprise him. Marius had never had a way with women. Which is why it seemed to surprise all of Les Amis that Cosette was still with him. "That must have been flattering."

Éponine shrugged her shoulders, "It's better than having them compared to shit," she told him. "You gotta look on the bright side."

"I would never compare them to mud though," Enjolras argued.

She surprised him by turning from the window and walking closer to him. She sat down, not in a chair, but on the edge of the table, directly in front of him. "Jehan did once," she told him with a grin. She closed her eyes as if trying to remember the direct quote, " _Earth kissed by spring rains, promising to stir life from dormant seeds_." She shrugged her shoulders and opened her eyes, "It's poetic, but wet dirt ... still mud." Enjolras shook his head. She smiled at him, "Okay, Mister fancy law student, what would you describe them as?"

Enjolras surprised both of them by leaning forward, staring her straight in the eye. Their noses were no more than an inch or so away from each other. She was uncomfortable, he could see it in the way her pupils widened. She tried to pull away, but he reached forward and grabbed her chin between his index finger and his thumb. He held her still for almost a minute before he spoke, "Coffee," he told her, his voice little more than a whisper. "Coffee with swirls of golden cinnamon around the edges."

She stared at him for a moment, her delicate eyebrows raised. And then she cleared her throat, "Coffee," she murmured quietly. "Right. People need coffee."

And then before he could stop her, before he could say anything she had pulled her chin out of his grasp and practically run away from him.

...

He liked her better in the afternoons. Éponine was not stupid. She knew how to work a crowd, she knew how to please, and she knew how to work what she had. When she worked the bar in the evenings she wore dark colors, revealing tops, and heavy make up.

Enjolras could not blame her for it. It brought in tips from drunk guys who thought they stood a chance with the hot bartender. And from the little she talked about her family he knew that she needed the money. But he liked her better in the afternoons when the cafe was quiet and she dressed down.

Now for example she was dressed in a pair of ripped jeans, a black tank top under a maroon plaid shirt, and no makeup. She looked comfortable, rather than dressed up. Pretty instead of hot. He liked it. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, there was a pencil stuck in it. Since there was no one at the cafe besides the two of them she had moved over to where he was studying and pulled out her own school work. At the moment she was sitting sideways in one of the large armchairs, her back resting against one armrest, her converse covered feet hanging over the other. She was squinting at the book in her hands as if she could not understand what she was reading.

Enjolras had been glancing at her every once in a while, not staring just glancing. At least that was what he told himself. "Do you need help?" he finally asked her.

She glanced up at him, her eyebrows raised. "Do you think I'm stupid?" she asked him. He shook his head, there were many things he thought Éponine was, stupid was not one of them. _Stubborn, opinionated, strong, but never stupid_. "Then why do you think I need help understanding something as simple as," she pulled the book closer to her face, squinting, "Maslow's hierarchy of needs?"

"Because you've been squinting at that same page for the last five minutes," Enjolras told her, not realizing until after the words had left his lips that he had just admitted that he had been watching her for the last five minutes.

If she noticed, she didn't say anything. "I just can't," she shook her head. "It's hard to make out the letters."

Enjolras smirked, he knew what she was talking about. He had experienced this himself a few years ago. "Do you get headaches?" he asked her, moving forward toward the edge of his seat.

She nodded.

"When you're at the computer do you start to fall asleep?"

Another nod.

"Need a bright light when you read?"

She nodded, her brows furrowed uncertainly. "Do I have a tumor or something?" she asked him, her voice hesitant, as if she were afraid that he was about to tell her that she only had six months to live or something.

He chuckled as he stood from his seat and moved closer to her, "Okay Joly," he teased her. He took his own glasses off and handed them to her, "Try these," he ordered.

She raised her eyebrows, but took his glasses and put them on before she turned back to the book in her lap. He knew his suspicions had been correct when a moment later her lips parted in surprise, her pupils widening, "Oh," she gasped quietly. "That is so much better."

She glanced away from the book and smiled at him, she looked adorable, blinking up at him from behind his glasses. Enjolras cleared his throat, not sure how he felt about that realization. "You need reading glasses," he told her. "You've probably needed them for a long time. You should have gone to the doctor to get your eyes checked when you first had trouble reading."

She shrugged her shoulders, "I don't really have the money for glasses or doctor's visits," she told him. She took his glasses off and tried to hand them back to him.

Enjolras waved off the glasses, "You can use them this afternoon," he told her. "I'm done reading for now."

She raised her eyebrows, "The studious Enjolras done studying for an afternoon?" she asked him, her voice colored with disbelief. She couldn't wrap her head around the concept.

He chuckled, "I am capable of relaxing, you know?"

"I don't know actually," she mused as she put his glasses back on and turned back to her textbook, "I've never actually seen it."

Enjolras smiled at her as he watched her read. He had been wrong the week before when he told her that her eyes were coffee colored. Perhaps sometimes they were. But when she was happy, truly happy, they were warmer than that.

During her happiest moments her eyes were the color of hot chocolate on a cold, winter night. When she glanced up at him and smiled, a dimple appearing in her cheek, the color wrapped around him like a blanket, engulfing him in its warmth.

Her eyes made him feel at home.

* * *

 _If looks could kill ... no, looks can kill._

* * *

She still wasn't sure how she felt about Enjolras. She supposed that she no longer hated him, perhaps she never had. But she wouldn't go as far as to say that they were friends, perhaps they never would be. They had a strange relationship, a routine that they never spoke about. She wasn't even sure if he noticed their changing relationship. There were times when he would look at her but she had the distinct feeling that he wasn't actually _seeing_ her, that he was looking _through_ her.

She was sure, actually, that he had never noticed it. And she never spoke about it for fear of losing it.

He would come by in the mornings and sit in the back corner, reading and occasionally watching her over the tops of his books as she dealt with the morning coffee rush. And then, only once the rush had quieted would he approach the counter to order his own coffee. It was always the last cup she made before she clocked out and prepared for class.

For weeks he followed her to the university, always a few meters behind her. She was sure that he thought that he was being sneaky, but she had grown up on the streets, she knew when she was being followed. Finally after three weeks of allowing him to stalk her she had finally turned to face him and demanded that if he was going to insist on following her from the cafe to the university the least he could do was walk _with_ her.

He had raised his eyebrows at her, _so he could raise both of them at the same time_ , and looked at her for a moment, a strangely intent look in his eyes, before he had walked away from her without a single word.

But the next morning when she left the cafe for class he fell in step beside her. They had walked to the university together every day since. Sometimes they talked, most days there were silent.

She thought that he preferred it that way. Enjolras liked to observe. He liked to watch the other students on the sidewalk as they walked to and from their classes. He liked to watch people on their way to work. He liked to watch Éponine when he thought she didn't notice.

The first few days they left each other as soon as they reached the main quad. But by the end of that first week walking together he started walking her all the way to her building. They never talked about it. It just became part of their strange routine.

After her classes she would rush back to the cafe for the afternoon shift. Those were her favorite times at the cafe, the afternoons. They were quiet, most people were at work or at school and rarely were there many people there. More often than not, it was just her and Enjolras.

They still didn't talk much. Mostly they just studied while sitting together. But it felt nice, to have someone to study with.

Sometimes she spoke, to fill the silence, she was sure that it annoyed him, but he never told her to shut up. So the more afternoons they spent together, sitting side by side studying and working on school work the more Enjolras learned about her.

She hadn't even realized it at first, how much she told him. How personal it was. His silence, broken occasionally by questions that he looked even looked surprised to be asking, was more inviting than an actual conversation with someone else.

By November she had told him about the first time she met Marius. She had told him about growing up with her parents, about how they had thrown her brother out on the street when he was a child and how Éponine had followed quickly after. Over mugs of coffee that he had once said matched her eyes she had told him about being forced to help her father on some of his _jobs_. She had told him about the beatings and the abuse and the countless nights on the streets until she and her brother had moved in with Cosette. She told him about her hopes and her dreams and how it had been Cosette's father who put it in her head that it might be possible for her to go to university.

She looked up at him one day, pushing the glasses she had stolen from him up on her nose and smiled, "I like talking to you," she whispered to him, so soft she was sure that he didn't hear her.

But he glanced up from his own book that he had been squinting at and nodded, "I like listening to you."

His response made her brave. "I like the way you look at me," she told him. His brows furrowed and she felt a blush rising on her cheeks. He thought that she meant romantically. She shook her head, quickly trying to put him at ease. "Not like that," she told him as she took off his glasses and handed them back to him. They had a routine with those too, passing them back and forth ever twenty minutes or so, sharing the clear vision and the headaches that came with studying. "There are times when you look at me and I'm sure that you don't even see me. But other times when you look at me, I know that you see _me_. Les Amis, I love them all, but often they look at me in pity, or as if I'm some sort of cause to fight for. You don't look at me like that. Cosette likes to paint me as some tragic heroine, strong despite everything I've been through. But you don't look at me like that either." She shook her head, wondering if she was even making sense to him. "When you see me, you see _me_ , you know?"

She had turned back to her book. When he spoke it was so quiet that she was sure she had misheard it. But there was a moment when she could have sworn that he said, "I _always_ see you."

Sometimes he would talk too, though it took him much longer than it took her to get personal. They talked politics, they debated laws, he quoted ancient philosophers. He talked about the weather as if it were the most interesting thing in the world some days. He'd tell her what he was studying and ask her about her own classes. Then it started to get more personal. He'd tell her about his plans for Les Amis, he didn't want them to just be a group of friends, he wanted them to make a difference in the world. He told her that he was going to be a lawyer because that was what his father wanted him to be. He was studying corporate law although that was not where his heart was. He wanted to make a difference, not make rich men richer - but there was a part of him that was terrified to tell his father that.

She liked to watch his eyes when he spoke. She had heard the cliched line _eyes are the windows to the soul_. She had never believed it, but as she watched Enjolras talk she realized that, perhaps, his eyes _were_ the windows to his soul. They were intense when he spoke about politics. They sparkled with delight when they debated and she made a point that surprised him. They flashed with purpose when he spoke about his classes or Les Amis. They darkened and narrowed when he spoke about his parents, his father in particular.

They warmed whenever she looked up and their eyes met.

He didn't smile often, but whenever he did it reached his eyes. They lightened.

She wondered if it were possible to get to close to someone just by knowing what made their eyes light up.

She wondered if he knew how much she enjoyed being the one who made his eyes soften.

Occasionally their quiet afternoons were interrupted by other members of Les Amis. His blue eyes warmed when Combeferre or Courfeyrac joined them. They glinted with interest whenever Feuilly could get the time off to come discuss politics. They softened in quiet encouragement whenever Jehan was nervous about a new poem or Bossuet suffered a new injury. They glinted playfully whenever Joly was convinced he had a new disease. They narrowed, focused whenever Bahorel argued with him. They darkened with disappointment every time Grantaire got too drunk or ignored his attempts to encourage him into applying for art school.

The most drastic change was when he saw Marius. She had never seen the two of them together before that first time she met Enjolras when he came to the bar. But they had seemed like good friends. But now, every time Marius came by the cafe or someone mentioned him, Enjolras' eyes would narrow into a glare. His blue eyes would darken, storm clouds interfering with the spring sky. They would stay that way until long after the conversation subject had changed or Marius had left.

"What'd he do to piss you off?" Éponine asked one afternoon after Marius had interrupted their afternoon study session for coffee and a quick question about what he should get Cosette for their three month anniversary.

"What?" Enjolras asked, glancing up from the book he had been glaring at.

"Marius," Éponine told him as she threw herself back into her seat. She pretended to not notice the way his eyes tightened when she said their friend's name. "You start glaring at anyone who mentions him. You glower every time he enters a room. You guys are friends, right?" He nodded. "Then why don't you act like it?"

When he looked up at her, his eyes looked sad. She wondered what she had said to make him upset. He shook his head, "We are friends," he told her. "It's just -" he looked like he wanted to say more, his eyes dancing over her face as if trying to read her reaction to words he hadn't said yet. He sighed and shook his head again, "You wouldn't understand."

"You don't love him do you?" she joked. He smirked. She had been hoping for a laugh, but she would count the smirk and slight lightening of his eyes as a win. "Because I would definitely understand that."

"That's the problem," he whispered.

She didn't hear him.

...

"Your guard dog's here again."

Éponine felt her spine stiffen. She didn't need to turn around from the glasses she was washing to know who stood on the other side of the bar. It was a voice she had known since she was a young girl. A voice that had haunted her nightmares since she was a teenager and had finally run away from home.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, straightening up from the sink, but still not turning around to face the man. "Didn't I make it clear that I never wanted to see you again?"

"Yes," she could hear a smirk in the man's voice. "You made it quite clear as you were rushing around my apartment, picking up your clothes." She flinched at the reminder, that night had not been one of her proudest moments.

Finally she turned to look at him, "What do you want, Montparnasse?" she asked him, not quite meeting his gaze.

He smirked at her, "It's Montparnasse now, is it?" he asked her. "Last time I saw you, you were screaming ' _Parnasse_. What's changed 'Ponine?"

"It's Éponine," Éponine corrected as she looked away from him, silently praying that there was a customer somewhere down the bar that needed her. But it was a pretty quiet night and Musichetta seemed to have most of it under control. "And I'd thank you not to bring that night up again," she added. "I'm at work."

"Are you sure it's not because of him?" Montparnasse asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against the bar, his gaze turning toward the door where _he_ was sitting at a small table a warm beer and a book in front of him. "What is he, your _boyfriend_?"

Éponine could feel a blush rising on her cheeks. She was thankful for the make up that would cover most of it and the dim lighting that would hide the rest. "No," she told Montparnasse honestly, pleased that her voice didn't sound disappointed. "We're just friends."

"We were _just friends_ once," Montparnasse told her, still not looking away from where Enjolras was reading.

"We were never friends," Éponine corrected him. "You worked for my father and I thought I was in love with you. And you took advantage of that. Those circumstances do not a friendship make."

She couldn't be sure, but she thought that perhaps Enjolras was watching them. He had not turned a page since Montparnasse had approached the bar and she thought that she could see him peering at them over the top of his book. Montparnasse had been mocking him when he called Enjolras her _guard dog_ , but there was something in the tense set of his shoulders and the clench of his fists that made Éponine think that he was forcing himself not to approach the bar and chase her visitor away.

Montparnasse chuckled, low and dark, "I bet that if I were to make one move on you, one unwanted advance he would be over here in an instant, making sure that you're okay."

Éponine raised her eyebrows at him, "You're assumption is wrong," she assured him. He finally turned to look at her, he thought that she was about to tell him that she wanted him there. He was wrong agaub. "You've already made two unwanted advances and he hasn't come to my rescue yet."

Montparnasse smirked at her, "Is that what you see in the pretty boy?" he asked her. "You think he's _Prince Charming_ and that he's going to rescue you like you're some sort of damsel in distress?" He shook his head, "That's not your life 'Ponine."

"Éponine," she corrected again. "And I know it's not my life. But I also know that I'm never going to come back to _you_." Montparnasse raised his eyebrows. "He may not want me, he may not be Prince Charming, but we're friends," she explained, her gaze falling on Enjolras again. Now he was _definitely_ watching. "He cares about me. When I was with you, I didn't know what that felt like. Now I do."

"And you're not going back?" Montparnasse asked, raising an eyebrow.

 _God he's handsome_ , Éponine couldn't help but think. She shook her head, both at her unwanted thought and his question. "Never _,"_ she assured him. She looked away for a moment before she glanced at him, "Now, unless you're going to order something I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I'm at _work_."

Montparnasse glanced down the bar, the picture of nonchalance, "I'll take a beer," he told her. "And I need you to come find me when you get a break. You may not want to talk to me, but I _need_ to speak to you."

"You can have a beer," Éponine told him. "I won't guarantee a discussion."

He surprised her by not pushing the subject and she quickly pulled him a beer from the selection they had on tap before he walked away. Whether by accident or by design he picked the table directly across from Enjolras, on the other side of the doorway. She wasn't sure why, but it made her uncomfortable to have them so close to each other.

Something bothered her about what Montparnasse had said. Two things actually.

 _Your guard dog's here again_.

That implied two things.

First that Montparnasse had been scoping out the cafe enough to have realized that Enjolras spent a lot of his time there.

And second that without her noticing Enjolras had added something new to their strange routine. She thought about the last few nights she had closed the bar. He was always there, from the start of her shift until he could walk her home. He always brought a book, ordered one beer that he did not drink, and ignored the wandering eyes of all the girls that were trying to catch his gaze.

She glanced up at him now, so used to the feeling of his eyes on her that she wasn't surprised to meet his gaze. His brows furrowed, as if silently asking her if she was alright. She waved off his concern.

He turned his head to look at Montparnasse. His eyes narrowed. She had thought that he was pissed at Marius, but it was nothing compared to the look he was giving Montparnasse.

 _If looks could kill_ , she thought.

Montparnasse would be six feet under.

* * *

 _Her eyes quickly filled with tears. He wanted to look away, this seemed private, but he had never seen someone work so hard to be strong._

* * *

They were sitting in the cafe one Sunday afternoon in early December. For the first time in months Éponine had the day off. She had forgone her usual seat and was instead sitting on the floor in front of Enjolras' chair, her back resting against his legs. She had a laptop resting on her lap and his reading glasses on as she typed a paper, every once in a while her gaze would drift from the screen in front of her to one of the several books laying on the floor around her.

Enjolras had given up studying for the afternoon and was instead catching up on his guilty pleasure, _Game of Thrones_. She had taken one look at the book in his hands and tried to give him his glasses back, but he had refused. "The print is so small," she had told him softly, still trying to hand over the glasses.

" _You're_ working on school work. _I'm_ reading for pleasure. Keep the glasses."

At some point while reading his hand had dropped from his lap to the top of her head. She didn't say anything and he didn't notice. The only reason he was aware that his fingers had been brushing through her hair was then when she stood up he lost the contact.

He glanced up from his book, his brows furrowed, wondering what had caused her to stand up so quickly. It did not take him long. By the door he could see Cosette standing, her shoulders shaking and her eyes filled with tears. In all the months he had known the blonde she had never cried. He wondered what had happened to upset the girl so much.

Éponine did not seem as confused as he was. She jumped into action. She placed her laptop on the table in front of her and quickly moved toward her roommate, she wrapped her arm around Cosette's shoulders and while whispering to her pulled the girl toward where Enjolras sat, his book forgotten.

She practically pushed the blonde into a seat before she knelt down on the floor in front of her. "What's wrong, Lark?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

"I think we've broken up," Cosette whispered, her breath hitching in her throat as she spoke. "I think it's over between Marius and I."

Enjolras watched _her_ face carefully. He had known it the first night he met her. Éponine was in love with Marius. It had surprised him that the brunette was such close friends with Cosette. But _this_ was her chance. If it was true, if Cosette and Marius really had broken up then this was her chance to tell Marius how she felt.

He expected to see barely concealed hope and happiness on her face. He had expected to see joy.

Instead her jaw clenched and her eyes were full of sympathy as she reached up to brush some of Cosette's blonde hair out of her eyes. "Now why do you say that?" she asked her roommate. "Marius Pontmercy would never break up with you."

Cosette sighed, tears sliding down her cheeks. Éponine sighed and glanced in Enjolras' direction, she wouldn't meet his gaze, as if she _knew_ what he was thinking. "Do you have a tissue or something?" she asked him.

He didn't, he had something different. He reached into the front pocket of his jacket and pulled out a red handkerchief. Despite her friend's tears Éponine scoffed and her dark eyes finally lifted to his face, "A handkerchief?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised. "Seriously?"

Enjolras shrugged his shoulders, "It's a classic," he told her.

"It's old fashioned," she argued. But all the same she took it and handed it to Cosette so that the blonde could wipe her eyes. "There," she said once Cosette was no longer sobbing uncontrollably. "Now, tell me what happened."

"We - we - we were t-talking about t-t-the future," Cosette stuttered out. "B-because b-by next f-fall I'm going t-to need to a-apply for - for master's p-programs. Y-you kn-know if I w-want one."

Éponine nodded in understanding, "And your father has suggested you look into Oxford," she murmured, a flash of understanding lighting her eyes.

Cosette nodded, "Papa, he r-really thinks t-th-that I - I - I could do well there."

"You would do well anywhere Cosette," Éponine assured her. "But you always loved England."

"B-but that was b-before I met M-M-Marius."

She flinched when Cosette sobbed out the name of the man they both loved. Enjolras wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder, to let her know that she was not alone.

He kept his hand in his lap.

"So you're giving up on Oxford?" Éponine asked.

Cosette shook her head, "I -I told Marius about it. I can't, I can't let Papa down. I h-have to try. I-I-I told Mar-Marius that he could co-come with me. W-We could l-live together."

"And he said no," Éponine said. She didn't need to ask the question. She and Marius were friends. She knew what he would say.

Cosette nodded, "H-he y-yelled at m-me. He s-said that he had t-too m-much debt. Th-that he could-couldn't a-afford to go to E-e-england."

"And then what happened?" Éponine asked, still running her hands through her friend's hair and making comforting noises every time Cosette looked as though she were going to get particularly worked up. Enjolras was amazed at how kind she was being. _This_ was her chance, she should have been jumping for joy and rushing to comfort Marius, but instead here she was soothing Cosette.

"He left," Cosette sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief again. "And I haven't seen him in th-three days."

Éponine sighed. _Here it is_ , Enjolras thought, his stomach tightening. Now she was going to tell Cosette that she was better off without Marius, she was going to say that she should only apply to Oxford and that she should forget Marius Pontmercy. And then she would go to the man and tell him that _she_ loved him. And that _she_ would never leave him.

Éponine Thénardier had surprised him enough in the time that he knew her that he supposed he shouldn't have been shocked by what she did next. But it seemed that the girl still had some surprises up her sleeve.

"Pontmercy is a fucking idiot," she told Cosette, grabbing the blonde's hand a pressing a kiss against the back of it. "You're intelligent, you're kind, you're funny, and so beautiful He is never going to find anyone in this world as perfect as you. No one as perfect for him as you. I'm sure he's stayed away for this long because he's embarrassed by how he acted. Call him, ask him for coffee," she glanced around the cafe, "not here. Somewhere without his friends spying on him. Tell him you love him. Tell him that that won't change, even if you go to Oxford for two years and he can't come with you. Ask him to wait for you."

"You think that will work?" Cosette asked, looking up at Éponine with hope shining in her eyes for the first time since she had entered the cafe. "You don't think it will scare him away if I tell him that?"

Éponine chuckled and shook her head, "It will work," she assured her friend. "I promise. And of course it won't scare him away. That boy has been in love with you since the day you met."

Cosette smiled at her friend, "We met because of you 'Ponine," she told her. Éponine nodded, she was well aware of that fact. "If he hadn't come to our apartment to pick you up for lunch that day -"

"I'll have to remember that for my maid of honor speech at your wedding," Éponine interrupted.

Cosette laughed, "You think there will be a wedding?" she asked. "One day?"

"Of course there will be," Éponine promised. "Unless you both become fucking idiots. I'm only going to talk you out of a break up once, so do not waste this."

Cosette leaned forward and pressed a kiss against Éponine's cheek, "Thank you," she whispered. "You are the one who knows both of us best. I _knew_ you would know what to do."

"Yeah, yeah," Éponine waved off the blonde's gratitude. "Just call me cupid. Now go."

Cosette turned toward Enjolras, she held his handkerchief out to him, but then laughed. "I'll wash this before I give it back to you," she told him. "I doubt you want my snot in your pocket." Then her blue eyes very deliberately darted toward Éponine, "Isn't Nina great?" she asked.

"It's Éponine," the brunette sighed from the floor. Her correction drowning out Enjolras' quiet response of _the greatest_.

With one final look between the two of them Cosette smiled and quickly ran out of the cafe. Éponine did not look at him as she moved back to where she had been sitting before Cosette came in. She pulled her laptop back onto her lap and prepared to get back to work. She didn't want to talk, Enjolras would give her the space she so clearly wanted. He turned back toward his book.

But two minutes later and she still hadn't started typing. He looked away from his book to see that she had pushed his glasses up onto the top of her head and her shoulders were shaking. She had kept the tears in when Cosette was there with jokes and sarcasm, but now that her best friend could not see her she had started to cry.

Enjolras wished that he hadn't given his handkerchief to Cosette.

He looked around, there were still no tissues around. "Fuck," he whispered as he quickly unzipped his red sweatshirt and handed it to her. He heard her laugh, a bitter sound, but she lifted the sleeve up to her eyes and used it to wipe at her tears before she turned to look at him.

"You must think that I am so stupid," she whispered. "So stupid to fall in love with someone who will _never_ love me."

Enjolras watched her for a moment, she had wiped the tears away, but they came back just as quickly. He shouldn't be staring at her, these tears weren't for him to see, but she intrigued him. He had never seen someone struggle so hard to stay strong. Finally he shook his head, "I don't think it's stupid," he told her. "And I would never think _you_ were stupid. Love is never stupid."

"But being in love with him might be," Éponine countered back, her tone bitter.

"Why did you do it?" Enjolras asked after a moment.

"Do what?"

"Help her decide to fix it? You could have told her that it was over, she would have listened to you. And then you could have gone after him."

"No," Éponine told him, shaking her head. "I couldn't have. You've seen them together. They're both so _fucking_ happy."

"But you're always so sad."

"And I love them enough to want them to be happy," Éponine told him. "Even if it is at my expense." She sighed and brushed determinedly at her eyes, wiping away all the tears.

She moved to hand the sweatshirt back to him, but he waved her off. "Keep it," he told her.

Her brown eyes were still watery when she smiled up at him, "Enjolras," she said softly. "My hero."

"Gabriel," he told her, surprising even himself. "My name is Gabriel."

Her eyes were the color of chocolate, warm and kind, when she smiled at him again, "Gabriel," she breathed.

* * *

 _His eyes were blue like the warm wool sweater that she pulled on when the air got that chill - comfortable, warm, familiar.  
_ _His eyes were that kind of blue_.

* * *

It was the day before Christmas. Les Amis was having a party at the Musain, a secret Santa gift exchange, and Éponine had gotten permission from the owner to hold it after hours as long as she promised to clean up afterward and not to allow Grantaire to drink _all_ of the alcohol.

There had been food (brought by Cosette and Marius who were happily back together). And drinking games (organized by Grantaire and Bahorel). And now the group was in the middle of a _too long_ run of holiday music sing-a-longs (so ordered by Joly and Courf).

"This is the last one!" Courf promised from his place at the piano seat as he started the intro to a slowed down version of _All I want for Christmas_.

Éponine glanced up from her place on the right side of the piano and caught Enjolras' eyes. He was standing on the other side, the left corner. She smiled at him, playfully scrunching her nose before she rolled her eyes in Courf's direction.

Enjolras smiled back, his eyes glinting playfully as he mimed hanging himself.

Still, when Courf demanded that everyone join in, they both sang.

"I don't want a lot for Christmas,  
There's just one thing I need.  
Don't care about those presents,  
Underneath the Christmas tree."

He moved from his spot, his eyes never leaving Éponine's face as he moved closer to her. Subtly, hoping no one would notice she shifted to her right, creating a space between herself and Combeferre so that there would be somewhere for Enjolras to stand. If he wanted to.

Perhaps he wasn't coming to stand next to her. Perhaps he was on his way to the restroom or something.

"I just want you for my own,  
More than you could ever know.  
Make my wish come true,  
You know that all I want for Christmas is you."

He easily slid into the place between her and Combeferre. The bespectacled Med student grinned at his friend and threw his arm around his shoulders. Éponine wondered if she had misread the situation. If perhaps he had come to talk to Combeferre instead of her.

But then he patted Ferre on the shoulder and ducked out from under his arm so that he could turn to Éponine. A slow smiled spreading across his lips.

"I won't ask for much this Christmas,  
I won't even wish for snow.  
Oh I'm just gonna keep on waiting,  
Underneath the mistletoe."

If she hadn't been looking forward, trying not to blush under his gaze she wouldn't have noticed the wicked smile on Courf's face.

She wouldn't have seen the not so subtle nod he gave the two of them before he lifted his right hand off the piano keys to point to the ceiling above them.

She glanced up, suddenly she couldn't hear the piano or her friends singing. All she could focus on was the little ball of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. She lowered her gaze down to Enjolras, he was looking at it too.

She was about to move away, to laugh it off as a joke, but then his gaze was on hers. "What the hell," he murmured, "it's Christmas."

His eyes were so warm. And so _blue_. And so damn familiar. They reminded her of that warm wool sweater that she pulled out of her closet every fall when the air began to chill. She wondered how she could have ever hated his eyes. They were so warm, so comfortable.

They were the best kind of blue.

The only thing that could have been warmer than his eyes were his lips when they brushed against hers in a barely there kiss.

It was nothing special. But it left her dazed. And Les Amis cheering.

She was so surprised by his action that it did not even occur to her to wonder why no one had pointed out the mistletoe when she and Ferre had been standing underneath it.

* * *

 _Wine comes in at the mouth  
_ _And love comes in at the eye;  
_ _That's all we shall know for truth  
_ _Before we grow old and die.  
_ _I lift the glass to my mouth,  
_ _I look at you, and I sigh._

 _William Butler Yeats_

* * *

Author's Note:

Well, if I had continued with the next sense this would have been one monster of a one-shot. As it is, it's simply one monster of a first chapter.  
I hope you enjoyed it. Did you? Hmm?  
The Les Mis section on this site makes me sad because there's not a lot in it, at least not recently.  
And I kind of understand that. Musicals aren't everyone's cup of tea. And the brick is fucking huge and intimidating.  
But it's such an amazing story, filled with so many fantastic characters. I just had to dip my feet into it.  
And hopefully, I'm doing it some justice.  
Anyway, if you enjoyed this chapter and you think I should keep going let me know. Reviews are like crack for me.  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


	2. Chapter Two: I'll Throw My Voice

_Read. Enjoy. Review. (The reading and enjoying are for you, the reviews are for me!)  
_ _I do not own Les Miserables, if I did ... everyone would be less miserable._

* * *

I'm a bit nervous about this chapter, I have to admit it. I had a really good thing going with the first chapter and I've got my fingers (and toes!) crossed that I didn't fuck it up with this one.  
How did I do? Still have the characters pegged pretty well?  
Seriously, I _need_ to know!

* * *

 _Chapter Two: I'll Throw My Voice into the Stars_

* * *

 _He could use her words as a barometer for how uncomfortable she was: the more uncomfortable, the faster she spoke._

* * *

He didn't see her again until after New Year's Day. He had been expected at his parents' house on Christmas Eve and she had been whisked away by Cosette to spend the holidays with her family. But a few days after New Years he walked into the Musain and she was standing behind the counter, looking as if she had always been there. She was with a customer when he first entered, helping them decide what they wanted from the menu. Enjolras did not mind, he was capable of being patient, and it gave him a chance to look at her.

He wasn't staring at her like a stalker, it wasn't inappropriate, but he had not realized how much he had missed seeing her every day until he saw her again. Her dark brown hair was hanging loose around her shoulders, her eyes sparkled, her brows furrowed a bit when the shoulder of her off-shoulder sweater slipped, revealing just a bit more tan skin from her collar bone to her shoulder. Absentmindedly, as if she had been doing it all morning, she pushed the sleeve back into place and continued speaking with the customer. Then, when the man finally decided on a drink, she smiled at him, her dimples showing before she turned to prepare his drink.

Enjolras moved up toward the counter when the man moved away. Éponine turned, the same smile on her face, "What can I get started for - Enj?" She looked surprised. He thought that she had seen him when he entered the cafe, but it was clear that she had not. He watched her face, wondering if she would be excited to see him, or angry. They had never talked about the kiss at the Les Amis Christmas party. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but soon after he had realized that she might have been insulted by his actions.

"Good to see that you're back," he told her, watching her, still trying to gauge her reaction. "Your replacement over your vacation was not good at picking out mugs at all. They were all wrong."

He was sure that there was a blush rising on her cheeks as she looked away from him, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I've heard that before," she told him, still not meeting his eyes. She gestured toward the man that was still waiting for his coffee. "Let me finish his order and then I'll get you your coffee."

Enjolras nodded, "I like it -"

"Black," she told him with a nod. She still wouldn't look at him, but there was a smile playing at her lips when she shook her head. "It's been a few weeks, Gabriel, not years. I remember how you take your coffee."

"Right," he told her, clearing his throat. He was an idiot for assuming that she had forgotten. And he was an idiot for being happy that she hadn't. He liked black coffee, that wasn't hard to remember. He pointed toward his usual chair, silently telling her that he would be waiting for her there when she was able to escape the counter.

Though she wouldn't meet his eye she must have been watching him out of the corner of her eye because she nodded to him, silently telling him that she would be there as soon as she could.

He pulled his book out of his bag and tried to force himself to read while he waited for her. But by the time she brought him a mug of coffee thirty minutes later he had read the same page five times and not absorbed any of it. It wasn't so much that he couldn't get her out of his head as that he was worried that his idiotic, thoughtless action had ruined their tentative friendship. He needed to talk to her so that he would know that they were alright.

He had never seen the mug she placed in front of him. It was red, the back was plain. When he turned it around to see the front she sat down in her seat across from him, not quite meeting his front of the mug had a picture of Napoleon on it. The classic one of the emperor on his horse; in one hand he held a red solo cup, in the other a liquor bottle. _They always invite me into parties, because I'm Borntoparte_. He snorted and glanced up at her, his eyebrows raised, "This is a new one," he mused.

She shrugged her shoulders, "It's your Christmas gift," she told him, talking to her left shoe. "I meant to give it to you at the party, but I wasn't your secret Santa and if I had given you an extra gift there would have been questions."

She's talking fast, faster than he has ever heard her speak, almost tripping over her words. It hadn't been long into their friendship when Enjolras had realized that he could use her words as a barometer for how she was feeling. When she was happy her words bubbled out of her, lilting and light. When she was sad her words came slower, as if she had to pull each word out of her mouth. When she was angry, her tone was hard, grating, raspy even. And when she was uncomfortable she spoke fast. The more uncomfortable she felt, the faster she spoke.

Now, for example, she was speaking a mile a minute.

She was uncomfortable and he had a feeling that it was his fault.

He wanted to apologize to her for whatever he had done that made her feel uncomfortable. He wanted to beg her to let their friendship return to the easy one they had enjoyed before the party. There was a small part of him that wanted to ask her if it was really that bad - kissing him. But before he could even open his mouth she was talking again.

"Anyway, I saw it a few days before Christmas at a novelty stand for tourists. I'm not sure why it was there. Most tourists don't give a shit about Napoleon, but it made me think of you. I figured that it would get you angry, that I would be in for one of your long lectures about Revolutionary politics, but I could also picture your face when you saw it." She gestured toward his face, "You'd get a little red, your jaw would clench, your brows furrow. It made me laugh. So I bought the mug. You hate it don't you? I knew you wouldn't love it, but you hate it. If you don't want to bring it home with you, I can keep it here. The bosses won't mind, or even notice. But I can't guarantee that I won't use it for your coffee every time you come in here. Unless you really hate it - why are you laughing at me?"

Enjolras hadn't even realized that he was laughing at her until she had asked him. He shook his head, still chuckling. "You just don't give me time to get a word in edgewise, do you?" he asked her. "I'm laughing because if you had given me the chance I would have told you that I like the mug. And that of course I'll be taking it home with me this evening."

"Oh," Éponine said, taking a deep breath. For a moment he thought that she was going to calm down. That whatever awkwardness she was feeling had passed and they would go back to their easy conversations. But after her breath she was off and running again.

"So how was your Christmas? 'Taire said that you had to go to your parents' for a Christmas Eve party. I know that must have been difficult, I thought about texting you to see if you needed to talk, but I realized that I didn't have your number. And then I thought that it was presumptive of me to even think that you would want me to text you, I mean, we're not really friends are we?"

Enjolras felt his eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline, he had thought they were friends.

At seeing his surprise she was backtracking, taking her question back. "I mean, we are friends, but a different kind of friends. You have Courf and Ferre to talk to on the phone. _They're_ the ones you would want to talk to if you were having a hard time with your parents, not me. We're the type of friends that see each other every day, that study together, and walk to class together. We're the kind of friends who share reading glasses and you judge me for loving Marius and I judge you for loving no one. And we're the kind of friends who can kiss under mistletoe and have it not be weird the next time we see each other. Right? We're that kind of _friends_ right?"

He was chuckling at her again. So it was the kiss that had made her uncomfortable. But not because she was angry about it, but because she thought that it would change the way they interacted with each other. He thought about letting her stress about it for a bit longer, but she looked so worried. He leaned forward, ducking his head until he could make eye contact and holding her gaze as he spoke. "We're that kind of friends," he promised her.

She sighed again, leaning back into her seat and finally relaxing. "Good," she told him, her words slowing a bit now. "I had spent all break worried that you would be angry with me."

"You thought that I was angry at you?" Enjolras asked, sputtering a bit on his sip of coffee. Of all the things the woman in front of him could have said, he had not expected to hear _this_.

Éponine nodded. She didn't say anything. He half expected her to start on another monologue, one that was fast and awkward, one that he wouldn't have been able to interrupt if he had tried. But this time she stayed silent, too worried or embarrassed to speak at all. She waited for him.

"Why would I be angry with you?" he asked. He was not going to let her get away without answering this.

"Because I was the one that was standing underneath the mistletoe?" she asked him as if it were the most obvious reason in the world.

She had been stressing about this over the holidays. He had already laughed at her twice. It would have been cruel to laugh again. He bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. And then, finally, when he was sure that he had himself under control, he shook his head. "I kissed _you_ , Éponine," he told her, not missing the way her dark eyes darted away from him. "If I was going to blame anyone for that I would have blamed myself. Or Combeferre for moving over. Or Courfeyrac for noticing. Or Jehan for hanging it up. I would never have blamed you."

She stared at him and for a moment he was sure that she was going to argue with him. But then she smiled and nodded, "You're right," she told him. "We should blame Jehan."

Enjolras nodded, "Jehan it is," he agreed with her. "And how should we punish him?"

"We should send his best poems in to a publisher without telling him," Éponine told him matter-of-factly. "It's the best kind of punishment because it would actually be quite helpful to him, but he'll be scared the whole time. Even though _we_ know that the publisher will love the poems."

Enjolras chuckled, pleased that her words were coming out at a normal speed again. It would have bothered him if she was uncomfortable around him all semester. "So, we're good now?" he asked her, just to be sure.

The smile she sent him was wide and comfortable, "We're great now," she promised him.

* * *

 _The way he talked about the things he loved made the whole room turn to see what shone._

* * *

Éponine Thénardier enjoyed watching Gabriel Enjolras speak. She liked the way his mouth moved around the words. She liked the way he was always so careful, so thoughtful about the words he chose to say. But more than anything she liked to close her eyes and listen to him. Over the months of their friendship she had become very good at determining his mood just by the tone of his voice.

She had two favorite tones of voice. The first was the soft, quiet, timber - the whisper that he used when he was editing his coursework (or hers, for that matter, he seemed to enjoy editing and tearing apart her work). It was quiet and unintentional. Part of her wondered if he even realized that he whispered what he was reading. It was soothing.

Sometimes when she was sitting on the floor by his chair she would ask him to edit whatever she was working on just so that she could close her eyes and listen to him. Her words always seemed to take on a magical quality when they were read in his voice.

"Do you want me to look over your paper?" he asked her one night when she took off his reading glasses to yawn and rub at her eyes.

There had once been a time when Éponine would have responded hostilely to this offer. She would have assumed that he was offering her his help because he thought that she was stupid. But now she knew the truth. They were friends. She could say that honestly now. And Gabriel Enjolras was one of those rare types who honestly expected and wanted the best out of his friends. He offered to help her not because he thought that she couldn't do it on her own, but because he wanted to help her achieve it.

And he would never admit it, but he seemed to be looking for more and more excuses to stop studying for his bar exam.

"Please," she told him, handing him both her laptop and his reading glasses. "There's a part in the middle that just doesn't read right. It's like, I know what I want to say, but I can't seem to figure out _how_. You know?"

He nodded, "I used to feel like that during debate in secondary school," he told her as he put the glasses on.

Éponine snorted, "You were on debate in secondary school?"

"Watch it," Enjolras warned her, shooting her a pointed look over the top of her laptop screen. "You're the one who needs help."

"And you're just helping out of the goodness of your heart?" Éponine teased, leaning her head back against his legs and tilting it up to look at him. "And not because you're sick of studying boring corporate law when that's the last thing in the world that you actually want to practice?"

Enjolras glanced up at her again, surprised, as if he thought that he had been good at hiding his feelings. "Taking a break from studying does not mean that I don't want to practice law," he told her.

 _Just not corporate law_ , Éponine thought to herself. But she didn't push it. Enjolras had a way of shutting down when things got too personal. He would talk to her about this if and when he wanted to. And not a moment before. "You're right," she told him. "So about that paper?"

He chuckled and shook his head, "Impatient," he murmured as he turned his gaze toward her history paper. "Germany and its Jewish population have always had a troubled past," he whispered, his eyes scanning the paper in front of him as he read. "When one thinks of Germany, the first thing that probably comes to mind is the anti-Semitic nature of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. But the truth is, that Germany's -"

Éponine smiled, when one of his hands dropped down on top of her head and his fingers began to run through her hair as he continued to read to himself.

Fighting another yawn she closed her eyes. Her last conscious thought was how Enjolras could make a boring history paper sound like an interesting read, just by the way he read it.

...

Her second favorite time to listen to Enjolras speak was when he was talking about something that he was passionate about.

Toward the end of January they had started to meet up outside of the Musain. Her schedule had changed a bit with her spring semester, she did not work as many afternoons. And the Paris winter weather was just a bit too much for her to walk to the cafe to hang out if she wasn't getting paid for it. Enjolras did not mind the weather, but he had a car.

A car that he did not mind driving to her apartment so that they could study together in her living room. She liked working with him in her apartment. It was a huge step in their friendship. But one thing she noticed was that they spent a lot less time studying than they had at the cafe.

At home they would pause to make snacks. They would watch the news. Occasionally Enjolras would stand up from his spot on the couch so that he could snoop around, looking at the belongings that littered the apartment. He had laughed at the stuffed animal she kept hidden under her pillow. He had given her many scathing reviews of the young adult books that Cosette had stacked on her bookcase. He took one look at a painting on the wall and knew instantly that Grantaire had been the artist. She felt like by spending one afternoon in her apartment he had gotten to know her better than he would have from countless afternoons at the cafe.

One afternoon they were sitting on the couch, her school work and his law books strewn all around them in a chaotic mess, the news playing softly in the background when his head snapped up suddenly, his attention completely focused on the television across the room.

Éponine glanced up, barely sparing the news report a look. It was a story about the Syrian refugees. France had closed the Jungle back in September, but that had not stopped the many refugees who continued to country, either in hopes of finding a permanent place to stay or a way further west. She glanced from the television screen to Enjolras, he was staring at it, his brows furrowed and his jaw clenched. "It's disgusting isn't it?" he asked her, his blue eyes never leaving the screen in front of them.

"The conditions they're living in?" Éponine asked, trying to make sense of her friend's sudden anger. "It is disgusting. But I imagine that it's better than where they were living in Syria."

Enjolras shook his head. "No," he told her, his voice flat and cold. "It would be better _if_ we were doing anything to help them. But our government promises them shelter, promises them care, and the police beat them and use tear gas on them, and steal children's blankets leaving them to freeze to death over night. It's not right."

Éponine watched him for a moment, the more he talked the more passionate he became. His voice was no longer flat, cold. It blazed. She wondered if she sat too close to him if she would be burned by it.

The words rumbled from somewhere deep inside of him. She had heard this voice before, it was the type of voice that made every head in the room turn. Rich and deep. He spoke as if he could control the entire world with only his words. In that moment he reminded her a thunderstorm - beautiful and dangerous and capable of changing _everything_ in a moment.

She nodded. "It's not right," she agreed with him. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Enjolras shook his head. "Ferre says that he might put off his residency for a year. He might go to one of the refugee camps and offer medical care for free. His mother's terrified, but I think it would be good for him."

Éponine nodded, she had heard about Combeferre's plans, he had shared them with her as well. "That's not what I asked you," she told him as she closed her book, carefully marking her place so that she would be able to find it again. "I didn't ask what 'Ferre was going to do to fix it. I asked what you were going to do."

Enjolras was quiet, "There's not much I can do, Ép," he told her, finally glancing away from the television screen. Éponine stayed quiet, waiting for him to look up at her before she arched an eyebrow at him, waiting. "What do you want me to do?" he asked her, his voice rumbling like thunder. "I have nothing," he glanced away from her again. "Nothing except for these stupid books," he threw the book in his hand on the ground. "I don't think donating my law books to refugees would do much for them."

"Well, they could burn them at night for warmth, I suppose," Éponine remarked sarcastically. She smiled. Enjolras did not smile in return. "I was thinking that you could use everything you've learned to help them."

Enjolras snorted, "Refugees have a lot of use for corporate law, do they Éponine?" he asked her. His voice was cold and mocking. It hurt a bit, he had never used this tone of voice with her.

She took a deep breath before she continued, she wasn't about to let him intimidate her. "There is more than one way to practice law, Gabriel Enjolras," she told him, her voice shaking with her effort to sound strong and unaffected by his tone. It did not serve her purpose. "You say that you're studying corporate law because that is what your father expected of you. You say you hate it. You say that you want to help these people. Well, forgive me, but I think someone who knows the law as well as you would damn well do a lot of good."

He stared at her for a moment, as if he could not believe that she had spoken to him like that. And then suddenly he leaned forward, grabbing onto her hands and pulling her to stand from her spot on the couch. "Jesus Éponine," he whispered to her, a grin spreading across his lips. "You're a genius!"

Éponine's brows shot up toward her hairline, she had not expected _this_. "I am?" she asked, a whisper.

Apparently standing up was not enough. Enjolras let go of her hands so that he could climb onto the living room table, his head almost hitting the low ceiling. "Of course you are," he told her. "After the bar exam, I have to do an internship, anything I'd like. I'll intern with an immigration firm. You're right, they won't want my books, but my brain -" He voice trailed off as he turned, extending one of his hands to her.

Éponine giggled as she slipped her hand into his and allowed him to pull her onto the table with him. "And your father?" she asked him, her voice hesitant.

"He'll hate it," Enjolras told him with a grin. "But fuck him."

* * *

 _Is it possible to know someone through the words they love?_

* * *

She was laughing at something Grantaire and Bahorel were saying when he walked into the Musain on Friday night. For the first Friday that he could remember she wasn't wearing what he called her _sexy bartender uniform_. Instead she was wearing a pair of jeans, converse, and a Paris Saint-Germain jersey. He didn't have to look at the back of it to know which player it belonged to.

The jersey was too big for her and his Adrien Rabiot jersey had been missing from his closet since the last time she had been over at his apartment.

He wondered how she had gotten into his closet without him noticing. Though, given what he now knew about her parents it wasn't so much of a surprise. He supposed that she had gotten quite good a sneaking over the years, whether that was from helping her father steal things or hiding from him when he was drunk.

Her laughter had quieted into a content smile by the time he was standing by her side. "Not working tonight?" he asked her by way of greeting.

She glanced up at him, her eyebrows raised, "Work during a PSG game? Do you think that I'm stupid?" she asked him.

"I think you're a thief," he teased her, nodding toward his jersey.

She looked a bit sheepish, "I didn't have one of my own," she told him, her tone apologetic. "I borrowed it, you've got like five. I didn't think you'd notice."

She started to pull her arms through the sleeves, preparing to take off the jersey, but Enjolras stopped her with a chuckle. "Stop," he told her, reaching out to place one of his hands on her shoulder, "I was kidding. You're right, I do have five of them. And this one probably looks better on you than it would on me."

"Of course it does," she told him, grinning up at him cheekily. "Breasts tend to do that."

"B-breasts?" Enjolras stuttered. She was smirking at him, the right corner of her lips turning up, a dimple in her cheek. She knew the word would make him feel uncomfortable and she was enjoying it. "Yes," he told her with a nod, struggling to control his surprised stuttering. "They do. Or so I hear."

"So you _see_ ," Grantaire teased from Éponine's other side. It wasn't until he had nodded toward the girl's chest that Enjolras realized that he had been staring down at it.

"I- I'm so s-sorry," he was stuttering again as he desperately tried to look anywhere but at at Éponine or her chest. "I did not mean to disrespect you."

She was laughing at him again, "Relax, Enj," she ordered. "I feel neither disrespected nor insulted. I brought them up, it was practically an invitation for you to look at them. Though, I must say I'm a bit insulted by your apparent disgust. Am I that ugly?"

"No," he told her, shaking his head. "You're not ugly, you're average." Grantaire was chuckling, apparently that was the wrong word to use to describe her. "You're more than average. You're normal."

"Normal?" Éponine echoed, her eyebrows raised as she glanced between Enjolras and Bahorel and Grantaire. "You hear that boys, I'm _normal_." She sighed, playing at disappointment. "I suppose it's my own fault. Hang out with a woman as beautiful as Cosette and what can you expect? I should be pleased with _normal_."

"He's nicer than I am," Bahorel teased her. "I would have called you ugly and left it at that."

"And you would have been a liar," Grantaire countered.

Éponine smiled at the brunette, Enjolras felt his chest tighten a bit at the sparkle in her eyes when she glanced at their friend. "Thank you, R," she told him.

"You're welcome, 'Ponine," he answered. "But you interrupted me. You're not ugly, you're hideous."

"And you're an ogre," she teased back, sticking her tongue out at him. Enjolras bit his tongue, he wanted to tell her that they were all wrong. That she wasn't hideous, or ugly, or average, or normal. But he wasn't good at talking to women and he would only embarrass himself or her even further. He kept quiet. She clapped her hands, looking between the three men, "You guys want a beer?" she asked them. "I can get them."

"I'll pay for them," Enjolras stepped in. He didn't want her to have to pay for their drinks, she was trying to save money.

She waved off his offer, "I get drinks for free here," she told him. "This is round is on me, sort of." She glanced toward the bar, "But you can help me carry them back."

He nodded and followed her toward the bar. Once they were away from Grantaire and Bahorel he felt like he could finally explain himself to her. "Resplendent," he told her quietly.

"What?" she asked him, looking over her shoulder at him.

"You're not average," he told her, yelling over the noise of the crowded bar. There were a lot of Paris Saint-Germaine fans there tonight, all of them yelling and cheering, he shouldn't have been surprised that she couldn't hear him over the crowd. "You're resplendent."

"Resplendent," Éponine echoed, her entire face lighting up in a grin. "I think I've just found my new favorite word."

...

Marius had moved in with Courfeyrac so that they could both save some money and in Marius' strange fashion he had decided to throw himself a housewarming party to celebrate his new apartment and roommate.

There was food, there was karaoke, and there were silly icebreaker games. As if they hadn't all known each other for years. They were currently sitting around in a circle on the floor. Each of them had a plastic cup, a pencil, and thirteen strips of paper.

"Alright!" Marius exclaimed, standing up from his spot on the floor. "So this is how you play. First we'll pass a permanent marker around. Everyone write your name on your cup. Then everyone will pass their cup to the person on their right. Once you have someone else's cup you take a strip of paper and write something on it, a word or a phrase, that describes them. Once everyone is done we will pass the cups to the right again. This will continue until you have your cup again. Then we'll take turns taking strips out of our cups and guessing who wrote it. The person who guesses the best wins."

"This seems very involved," Éponine spoke up from where she was leaning against Courfeyrac. "Can't we just play truth or dare or something."

"I'm all for spin the bottle," Musichetta added.

"That's because you have two boyfriends," Courfeyrac told her.

"No," Musichetta argued, "It's because I wouldn't have a problem kissing any of you."

"Yeah well, there's a disproportionate amount of men to women in the group," Bahorel interjected. "So I'd rather not play that game if it's all the same to you."

"We're playing this game right now!" Marius spoke out over his friends' disdain. "It's really fun. Cosette was telling me about it, she played it during her university orientation."

"Which was what? Last week?" Grantaire teased.

"I get it," Cosette said, playfully glaring at Grantaire, "because I'm so young compared to you guys."

"Nina is younger," Marius comforted her.

"Éponine," both Enjolras and Éponine corrected at the same time.

She lifted her head off of Courfeyrac's shoulder to smile at him.

"Éponine then," Marius said with a shrug. "Anyway, a few more rules. Nothing _too_ mean. Try to use words and descriptions that you don't think other people will use. It will be no fun if everyone uses the word _blonde_ to describe Cosette, for example."

"Or drunk to describe Grantaire?" Éponine asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Or troll to describe Éponine?" Grantaire countered, smiling at her to soften the playful insult.

"Exactly," Marius interrupted before Éponine could insult Grantaire again. "It'll be fun, I promise. Let's go."

Somewhat grudgingly the group passed the permanent markers around to play the game. What surprised Enjolras the most was that once they started playing everyone seemed to put quite a bit of thought into their responses. What surprised him almost just as much was that he kept glancing at Éponine every time she got a new cup. Her brows would furrow, she would bite her lip, thinking seriously before she would smirk and began to write. It was all very similar to when she picked out mugs for customers at the cafe.

It took them almost half an hour for the plastic cups to make their way around the full circle. "I'll go first!" Marius cheered once he had his cup in his hand. He closed his eyes and fished out a slip of paper, "Love," he read. Then he turned to grin at Cosette, "I know who wrote that."

"Gross," Courfeyrac muttered as they kissed each other.

Enjolras glanced at Éponine, her jaw was clenched. She had helped Marius and Cosette get back together, but that had not helped her get over him.

"Now me! Now me!" Grantaire cheered, he had been watching Éponine too and he wanted to distract her. He pulled out a slip of paper, "Bibulous," he read, his eyebrows raised. "What the hell does that mean?"

Most people in the circle shrugged. Éponine smiled, "Excessively fond of drinking alcohol," she supplied.

"And to think, I was nice to you. I see how you return the favor!" Grantaire joked as he finished his beer. "Very well, 'Ponine is right. I am Bibulous."

Later that evening when Enjolras found the slip of paper that Éponine had used to describe him he couldn't help but smile.

 _Superman_.

...

"What are you doing out of bed?" Éponine asked him as she let herself into his apartment one morning in mid February.

Enjolras glanced up from the bag he was packing at his kitchen counter. "When I gave you a key it was for emergencies," he told her without looking up. "Not so that you could break into my apartment at eight in the morning and yell at me for getting ready for class."

"I can't break in if I have a key," she told him, holding up the key and dangling it in his face. "And I'm here because I _knew_ you would try to go to class today."

"I need to go," Enjolras told her, trying to move around her toward the door. "Please lock the door when you leave."

She caught his arm and shoved him back toward his living room. "You _need_ to get back into bed," she told him, her voice leaving very little room for argument. "You were throwing up last night. You had a fever. You're sick. You need to rest."

"I don't have time to rest," he argued.

"I know," she nodded, mocking him. "You only have four and a half months until your bar exams. One day in bed is going to completely derail your perfect score."

"You really don't have to mock me," Enjolras told her. But his fight had left him. It had been a struggle to get out of bed this morning, he had almost passed out in the shower, he hadn't eaten anything for breakfast because he knew he would only throw it back up. It was as if he had been waiting for someone to show up at his apartment and order him to skip class and get back into bed.

And here she was - all twenty years, five feet, and one hundred pounds of her.

"And you really don't have to pretend that you're not already on your way back to sleep," she told him, a gentle smile tugging at her lips. "Go back to sleep, I'll come wake you up with some soup around lunch. And if you still feel the need to study, I'll quiz you this afternoon. Alright?"

"Do you do this for everyone when they get sick?" Enjolras asked.

She thought about it for a moment before she nodded, "It started with Marius, I suppose. He got the flu my first year of school. I took care of him." Enjolras' stomach rolled, he told himself it was because he was sick and not because he hated the idea of Éponine taking care of Marius when he was ill. "I draw the line at hangovers though," she continued. "Grantaire ruined that for everyone." She glanced at Enjolras, "What are you still doing here?" she asked him. "I told you to go back to bed. And you better be sleeping when I check on you. I swear I will throw any law books I find out the window."

"You're so stubborn," Enjolras chuckled.

She smiled at him, his gaze caught on her dimples, "I prefer the word tenacious," she told him as she gently started to shove him toward his bedroom. "It's got a much less negative connotation."

"Tenacious then," Enjolras allowed.

"That's me," Éponine told him with a final shove. "Tenacious and resplendent."

He was still smiling when he undressed and climbed back into bed. He could think of many words to describe Éponine Thénardier, but perhaps he should stop trying. She could describe herself just fine.

* * *

 _His roar reverberated in her ears like a clap of thunder, such was his rage._

* * *

She was uncomfortable. Perhaps all of them were, but none so much as Éponine. The others, though rarely, had at least been to Enjolras' parent's house before, they knew what to expect. But never in her wildest dreams had Éponine ever imagined entering a house like this, at least not legally. And she was sure that everyone there could tell that she didn't belong. That with one look they would know that she had stolen her shoes from her sister, and borrowed a dress from her roommate. They were all judging her, all looking down on her - the charity case that Enjolras and his friends had picked up at a coffee shop.

She fidgeted and tugged on her dress. It was floor length and tugging on it did very little, but it made her feel better, it gave her something to do with her hands. "Stop fidgeting," Combeferre commanded as he moved over to stand beside her. "If you need something to do with your hands you can hold this." He passed her a champagne flute without looking at her. She smiled at him, he knew her well - they all did. Though he wasn't looking at her, he must have been watching her out of the corner of his eye because his lips turned up at the corner. "You have nothing to be worried about, Ép," he assured her, his voice soft and sure. "You look lovely."

"I stick out like a sore thumb," Éponine argued, reaching down with her left hand to tug at her dress again. The slit was too long, no woman here had as long of a slit in their skirt as she did. Why had she let Cosette talk her into borrowing this dress? _It makes your legs look a mile long_ , Cosette had assured her. That had seemed like a good thing at the time, but now Éponine would gladly trade in her mile long legs for a dress that was more modest.

Combeferre reached out for her left hand, holding it tight in his own right one. "Only because you keep worrying about your dress," he told her. He shook his head and chuckled, "I would have handed you two flutes, but then you would have looked like an alcoholic."

"And there can only be one of those at this party?" Éponine asked, nodding toward Grantaire. He was standing at the bar, he had been standing there all night and she had a feeling that he did not intend to leave until the rest of Les Amis dragged him out to a car to go home.

Combeferre's eyes darted around the large ball room they were standing in. There were many older and younger people there. All of them had drinks in their hands. "Actually, my dear," he told her, turning to wink at her, "I believe what this party truly needs is one sober person."

Éponine laughed and shook her head. "And that's why you brought me? I really feel the love, 'Ferre."

Combeferre chuckled at her. "Actually, we brought you because you bring up the group average, at least as far as looks go." Éponine arched an eyebrow, a silent threat that Combeferre better rethink his words. He laughed harder and shook his head, "Don't shoot the messenger," he told her, his hands coming up in surrender. "I'm merely repeating what Bahorel said."

"I will kill him," Éponine told the med student through clenched teeth. "I will kill him."

"Who?" a voice asked from her right. She did not need to turn to look at him, she would know his voice anywhere. "Who are we helping you kill, Ép?"

"Bahorel," she told Enjolras as he took the champagne flute out of her hand and took a sip. "Hey!"

Enjolras chuckled, stepping just out of reach as her hand shot out, trying to take the glass back from him. "Found out about the group average, did you?"

She nodded, turning to look at him and opening her eyes as wide as possible. Her bottom lip jutted out as she pouted playfully at Enjolras, "Is that really why I'm here?" she asked him.

He swallowed thickly, her gaze dropped down to his throat, watching him. He cleared his throat, "No," he finally managed to tell her. "You are not here because you bring up the average. You're here because you're one of the few people in this group that can keep me sane."

She smiled at him, "You're always sane, Enj."

He ducked his head, his blue eyes sparkling, "You have no frame of reference," he told her.

"I think I do," Éponine argued. "I see you every day. And I have never seen you be anything other than completely, irritatingly sane."

"I'm sane whenever you see me because _you're_ there," he told her. "You have no frame of reference because you are the control group."

She raised her eyebrows, a smirk playing at her lips, "I don't believe that for a second," she told him.

"It's true," Combeferre told her, defending his friend. "He's different around you, softer." Enjolras shot Combeferre a glare over Éponine's head and Combeferre cleared his throat. "Right," he said with a nod. "Well, that is my cue to go. Courfeyrac wants to see me."

"What?" Éponine asked, turning her head to glance at Combeferre. "Courf? How do you know that?"

"I can hear him calling, can't you?" Combeferre asked, pointing over his shoulder. And then before Éponine could tell him that he was lying, that not only was Courfeyrac not calling for him, but that he was in the opposite direction, he was gone.

She stared at his now empty spot for a long moment before she turned to look at Enjolras. He wasn't looking at her, his blue eyes were trained on a couple across the room from them, his parents. He must have felt her gaze on his face though, because he spoke. "He's right, you know?" he asked her. "He used the word _softer_ to make us uncomfortable, but I am different around you."

"How so?" Éponine asked, turning to give him her full attention.

He turned to look at her, his blue eyes scanning her face as if looking for an answer to a question that he had not asked. "I don't know," he told her, his voice gentle. "And I am not entirely sure that it is all a good change."

Éponine stared at him for almost a minute before she sighed, "Being soft is not the same as being weak, Enjolras."

His gaze drifted from her to the couple across the room, specifically on his father. "That's not what he thinks," he told her, a rueful smile twisting its way onto his lips.

Éponine reached out for his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, "What was it you said in my apartment not that long ago?" she asked him. " _Fuck him_?"

Enjolras chuckled, "If only it were that easy."

...

She and Grantaire had snuck out onto the balcony for five minutes to share a cigarette. That was all, five minutes. That was all the time it took for shit to hit the proverbial fan, at least as far as Enjolras and his father were concerned.

At first she did not notice it, the way the room beyond the glass French doors had gotten slightly quieter, as if everyone was uncomfortable. She did not notice when the room got almost silent. But she heard the fight as it started, rumbling like a storm in the distance, her head turned toward the doors, it was as if after all the years of living with her parents she had been trained to sense a fight.

Grantaire's gaze followed hers and he sighed, "Like clockwork," he murmured under his breath as they watched Enjolras' father reach out and grab his son's arm as he tried to walk away. Through the glass doors Éponine could not hear the words the older man yelled at his son, but she could hear his booming voice, she swore she could see the glass in the doors shake. She started to walk forward, toward the doors. "Ép!" Grantaire called after her in a strange sort of yelling whisper. "Éponine don't! He won't want you to see this!"

But it was too late, she had already opened the doors. She was already striding forward, the only one in the entire group of people at the party that was brave enough to approach the feuding pair.

"I don't care what you think, Father," Enjolras was whispering to his father, he at least seemed to be trying to keep his voice down, to keep their fight from being too public. "I am not a child anymore. You have no more control over what I do with my life after I finish school than you do over what time I go to sleep."

His father's eyes narrowed into a glare. "You don't care what I think?" he bellowed, moving closer to Enjolras, getting right in his face to intimidate him. "I have no say in your life? I only pay for your school and your damn apartment! I think that earns me the right to say what kind of law you will practice with the degree I paid for!"

Enjolras opened his mouth to argue. Éponine moved forward quickly, reaching out for his arm. "Enj," she whispered, "let it go."

He turned to look at her and for a moment she thought that he was going to yell at her too, but then his gaze softened and he took a deep breath. She smiled when she felt him calming down underneath her hands. She nodded, encouraging him. She heard his father laugh, a bitter sound. "And I suppose _this_ is the reason you've suddenly changed your mind about everything we had planned?" he asked as if it were some sort of joke.

"Her name is Éponine," Enjolras told his father before Éponine could come to her own defense. "And she has nothing to do with it, nothing short of _supporting_ me when I realized that _your_ life was not at all what I wanted for myself."

His father laughed, that same bitter sound, "Jesus Gabriel," he sighed. "When your mother and I told you to go out and find yourself a girl, we meant one from _our_ world. Where did you find this one? In an alley behind a bar?"

Enjolras' fist flew so quickly that Éponine did not see it until it had already come in contact with his father's face. Enjolras did not spend a lot of time in the boxing gym, his punch was not a good one, sloppy at best; but as inexperienced as he was at throwing a punch, his father seemed even less experienced in taking one. He spun, loosing his balance and fell to the floor, staring at his son in disbelief.

"Her name is Éponine!" Enjolras reminded his father again, this time yelling. "And you have no _fucking_ right to talk to her at all, least of all like that!" If Éponine had thought that his father sounded like thunder when he yelled, it was nothing like the way Enjolras' voice cracked across the silent room. She had never seen someone filled with so much rage.

His father's nose was bleeding, he swiped at it as he glared up at his son, "Get out," he ordered, his voice hard as stone. "Get the fuck out."

Enjolras nodded, barely sparing his father a second glance as he grabbed Éponine's wrist and started to pull her from the room. She didn't need to look over her shoulder to know that the rest of Les Amis were quickly following behind them.

She wouldn't have been able to look, even if she had wanted to. She couldn't take her eyes off of Enjolras.

She had once remembered Jehan describing Enjolras as a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. And she had never believed it until now. He had been terrible to his father, that much was true.

But he had done it to defend her.

* * *

 _He liked it - the sound of his name mixed with her voice._

* * *

She let herself into his apartment unannounced the next morning. He was beginning to think that he needed to take back his _emergency key_ as he lifted his gaze from the book he was reading to look at her as she walked toward the couch he was sitting on. She paused, about a foot away from the couch and stared at him, her arms crossed over her chest, her foot tapping angrily against his floor. He raised an eyebrow, silently waiting for her to speak, clearly the girl had something she needed to get off her chest.

She blew out a breath, bit her bottom lip for a moment and shook her head, "Are we even going to talk about last night?" she asked him, her gaze flitting around his living room, landing on anything except him.

She was speaking fast again, her words tripping over themselves in their race out of her mouth. She was uncomfortable, no doubt she had been since they had left the party at his parents' house. He should have talked to her about it last night, it was cruel of him to let it wait this long, but he was proud of the fact that he had never lost his control in front of her. He was ashamed that he had last night. He hadn't known how to address it, he still didn't. And from the look of her, neither did she.

He shrugged his shoulders, "My father is an asshole," he told her, looking for an easy excuse to make his answer. "He's one to everyone. But you didn't deserve what he said about you last night." He looked away from her and shrugged his shoulders again, "I shouldn't have blown up at him, but he shouldn't have spoken to you like that."

Her laugh was sarcastic as she finally moved from her spot, coming to sit on the couch beside him, Enjolras moved his legs to give her more space. "I think _blown up_ is a bit of an understatement," she told him, turning to smile at him. "Gabriel, you punched your father."

Even remembering it now made his blood boil, he could feel it. His fists clenched and his jaw tightened. He hadn't regretted that, if his father were somehow to miraculously appear in the room at that moment he would most likely do it again. But something quieted the anger. She had said his name.

It wasn't the first time she had said his name since he had told it to her, but this time seemed more important than all the others. She wasn't using it sarcastically. She wasn't using it to make a point. The soft, quiet quality of it made him think that she hadn't meant to use it at all.

He liked that. He liked to think that she called him _Gabriel_ in her head and that sometimes, when she didn't have her guard up, the name escaped through her lips without her permission. He liked it because it meant that he was on her mind more often than she would have him believe.

He cleared his throat, looking away from her so that she wouldn't see the blush he felt burning its way onto his cheeks. "And I'd punch him again if he said something like that about you again," he told her, hoping that she wouldn't hear the discomfort he was feeling at having to admit that to her. He wasn't Jehan or Marius, or ever Courfeyrac or Grantaire, he wasn't _good_ at feelings.

He was still looking away from her, but he could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke again. "And while I thank you for that, I'm not some damsel in distress that needs you to ride to my defense and _punch_ everyone who says something that hurts me." She didn't sound angry. He turned to look at her and she was smiling softly at him. "You father is an ass, Gabriel," she told him, using his name again. This time it sounded more deliberate, a conscious choice not to use the name he shared with his father. "But you cannot fight with him like that. Especially over something as stupid as _me_."

Enjolras arched a brow at that, apparently he and Éponine Thénardier had very different ideas about what a _stupid_ reason to fight was. It was stupid for him to fight with his father about his career, there was nothing his father could do to change his mind, and if the money was an issue then, once he started working he would pay his father back. But Éponine, she was something that mattered.

He shook his head, "It doesn't matter," he told her, his voice soft. "He's always been like this and nothing I say will ever change that. He yells -"

"He yells because he _cares_ ," Éponine interjected before he could continue. Enjolras turned to her, he wanted to argue, but she shook her head before he could. "My father used to yell," she told him, her voice taking on the quiet, shaky quality it always did when she spoke about her parents. He wanted to tell her to stop, he knew how much it hurt her to talk about them, but her eyes were narrowed, her jaw set, she was determined to get to her point. "My mother too. I spent years living in a house where I hid every time I heard one of them yell for me. And I would have _killed_ for just once to hear them yell at me the way your father yelled at you last night. _Killed_ , Gabriel. What he said about me was cruel, you're right, but the rest of it was because he cared."

Enjolras shook his head, "All he cares about is the money," he told her bitterly. "And how it'll look to all of his friends to have put his son through this fancy law school for me to turn around and not make the money he thinks I should be making. To not be rich like him."

Éponine shook her head, her lips turning up at the corners like she was talking to a stubborn child who refused to see her point. "He's worried that you'll start work as an immigration lawyer and you won't have the money to support yourself, to live the life he's dreamed for you." She looked away, her lip trembling a bit, "He just goes about showing it the wrong way."

Enjolras wanted to do something to comfort her, he could only imagine how difficult this conversation was for her, to sit here and tell him how his father loved him when they both knew that hers did not love her. He wanted to tell her that her parents cared about her too, the only way they knew how - but he didn't know if that was the truth and he did not want to lie to her. He wanted to tell her that he would always care about her, but it would make her uncomfortable. And probably scare her away.

She saved him, as she often did, from having to say anything when she reached out and clapped her hand against his knee. "Well, now that we've had this conversation and I've shared my _little orphan Annie_ two cents, I'll let you get back to studying."

Enjolras cleared his throat, "You can stay," he offered her.

She smiled at him and shook her head, "I've got plans, Enj," she told him. "You think this little intervention was the only think I'm doing today?" She shook her head, scrunching her nose playfully, "Cosette, Marius, Courf, and I are going over to Cosette's father's for dinner tonight."

Enjolras raised his eyebrows at that, it seemed like an odd bunch to be having dinner with Cosette's father. "Why?" he asked, drawing the word out longer than it needed to be and praying that it wasn't some strange sort of double date.

Éponine shrugged her shoulders, "Lark and I go over to Valjean's every week for dinner. It's kind of a tradition. Lately she's been bring Marius and that's been," she waved her hands, a vague gesture that he took to mean _awkward_ or _hard_. "So I thought I'd bring somebody. Jehan is busy, 'Ferre's got a _real date_ , Bossuet and Joly are doing whatever the hell they do with Chetta, Bahorel's got a fight tonight, Feuilly has a class, and I was definitely not going to bring R, that's just a recipe for disaster. Courf can pretend to behave, at least, and he's Marius' roommate, so it's kind of a roommate dinner with Jean thrown in."

Enjolras' shoulders sagged a bit, in spite of himself. She had just run through the list of Les Amis, apparently asking each and every one of them to go with her tonight except for him and Grantaire. He didn't know what to make of that.

She stood up from the couch, "I would have asked you," she told him, almost absentmindedly as she moved toward his door. "But you have that habit of glaring at Marius that I haven't quite figured out yet. I figured that would only make things, more ..." she waved her hands again. "Anyway, I'll see you later, Gabriel."

He smiled.

...

A week later, at the beginning of March she ran into the cafe, excitedly waving a letter in the air as she approached their usual spot near the back. Enjolras glanced up from his laptop to watch her with raised eyebrows as she waved at the girl behind the counter, he thought it might be her sister, before throwing herself down on the couch next to him and throwing the letter in his lap.

He had his headphones in, not so much for music, there was none playing, the headphone jack wasn't even attached, but it kept people away from him. Everyone except his friends that is. "What's this?" he asked her as he reached up to take the take the headphones off his head.

"You should read it," she told him in a sing song voice. He reached out for it but she was faster. She grabbed it from him. "On second thought, maybe you shouldn't." She looked uncomfortable, and even a bit afraid. He didn't like to think that he was the reason she would look like that. All of the excitement she had when she entered the cafe was gone now, in fact she was looking at him a bit sheepishly.

"You have to promise me something," she told him. It was an unusual request.

"Anything," Enjolras told her, meaning the word.

"Gabriel, I'm serious," she told him, her voice quick and stilted.

"And so am I," he told her. "What do I need to promise you, Ép?"

"That you won't get mad at me," she told him. "No matter what."

His brow furrowed; he couldn't imagine why he would be angry with her, but she seemed so certain that he would be. "I promise," he told her. "I won't get angry."

"This is a letter from your mother," Éponine told him, playing with the letter in question in her hands. "The second one I've gotten."

Enjolras felt his fist clench, he took a deep breath, trying to force himself to calm down. "And why would she write you two letters?" he asked her, breathing through his nose.

"Because I responded to the first one," she told him as if it were an obvious response.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, it was getting harder to remain calm. His mother had just stood by when his father yelled at him for wanting to follow his dreams. She had stood by when his father insulted Éponine. She had stood by when his father had ordered him to get out of the house. He couldn't imagine what she had to say to the brunette sitting beside him.

"Well, she wanted to apologize for everything your father said," Éponine told him, her voice a whisper. "And I think she thought that maybe I would be able to persuade you to answer the phone when she calls."

"And that's what this is?" Enjolras asked her. "You're here to tell me to answer when my mother calls?"

Éponine shook her head, "No," she told him. He took a deep breath, feeling himself relax. "I'm here to tell you that you're having dinner with _both_ your parents on Friday. There won't be any yelling, from either you or your father. There won't be any insults or punches. Your father wants to apologize."

"And why should I let him?" Enjolras growled.

"Because it's the right thing to do," she told him, looking at him sharply. "And I think you should apologize to him as well."

She was meddling, something he very rarely allowed any of his friends to do. But when he looked at her he couldn't be _too_ angry with her. "This has to do with your parents," he said softly, getting to the heart of it very quickly.

She nodded, "My parents and I will never have a relationship," she told him with a shrug. "For very obvious reasons. And it's nosey and intrusive, I know that, but I cannot sit back and watch you throw away a relationship with your parents because your father can't figure out how to show you that he cares about you when he clearly does." She gestured toward him. "You're not that great at showing emotions either, Enj. Don't fault him for it when you're just as guilty."

Enjolras smiled ruefully at her, "I learned it from him," he told her, defending himself.

"Then let him learn forgiveness from you," Éponine told him, her voice showing him just how much faith she had in him.

He sighed, that was not how he planned to spend his Friday evening. But after a moment under her intense gaze he nodded. "We're not going to be some happy family," he warned her.

She nodded, "As long as you're not strangers either." She stood up and started to walk away from him. After a moment she paused, and then turned, rushing toward him so that she could throw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug. He had almost raised his arms to hug her back when she pulled away. "No matter what," she told him, smiling down at him, all dimples and straight white teeth. "I'm proud of you, Gabriel."

* * *

 _The way he said her name was different.  
_ _She knew that her name was safe in his mouth._

* * *

"I don't know about this, Pontmercy," Éponine told her friend, her voice a soft whisper as she stood next to her friend. "I don't think this is how it's supposed to work. This has got to be bad luck or something."

"Nonsense, Nina," Marius told her, looking past her at the store in front of them. "How can this be bad luck?" He shook his head. "You're my best friend, you're her best friend. You know what she would like better than I ever will." He paused, "And your fingers are the same size."

He reached out, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the doors. Éponine walked slowly, dragging her feet. The last thing that she wanted to do on her day off was help the man she loved pick out an engagement ring for her roommate and best friend. But she was Éponine and he was Marius and it was impossible for her to say no to him.

Twenty minutes later Éponine was standing in front of a display case, staring blankly at the rows of rings just waiting for a couple when Marius approached her with a ring. "What about this one?" he asked.

Éponine turned to look at. It was beautiful. A rose gold band, with a large circular white diamond at the center and two smaller white diamonds on either side. Simple, beautiful, and absolutely perfect for Cosette. Éponine's vision blurred slightly as tear began to fill her eyes. She blinked her eyes and cleared her throat, "It's prefect," she told him with a nod. "She'll love it."

"Put it on," Marius suggested, reaching out for her hand. Éponine shook her head, but he was determined. He grabbed her hand, "I need to see it on your hand," he told her. "Please Nina!"

She sighed, looking away as he slipped the ring on her finger. She couldn't look at it. A part of her was terrified that it wouldn't look right on her finger; that _this_ ring from _this_ man would not fit her. Another part of her was terrified that it would look right; that she would be reminded of everything she would never get from Marius.

"Oh that one is beautiful," a saleswoman told them, approaching the pair with a pasted on smile on her face. She nodded, moving closer to Éponine. "A near perfect fit on her finger," she told Marius. "I might go down one size," she grabbed Éponine's hand to get a closer look. "Her fingers are so delicate and small."

She turned to Éponine, an aside, "You are very lucky," she told her. "Not many guys are smart enough to bring their girlfriends in to pick out the ring."

"Oh I'm not -" Éponine told her quickly, shaking her head and pulling her hand out of the woman's grip.

"Nina's just my friend," Marius explained to the woman. "This ring is for her roommate."

The tears were back at the casual way Marius said _just my friend_. She quickly blinked them away, turning her head so that neither Marius nor the woman would see them. She could feel the woman's gaze on her. "Oh," she said softly, drawing out the word as if it had more syllables. "I'm sorry for the assumption. But I am sure that your fiance to be would love this ring as well."

Éponine nodded, "She would," she agreed.

...

Grantaire only needed to take one look at her to know that something was wrong. She had thought that she had done a fairly good job at hiding the pain on her face, but perhaps she had only been able to hide it from Marius who had always been blind to her, at least when Cosette was concerned.

"Ép?" Grantaire asked her, sitting up a little straighter in his seat on the couch at the cafe. "What's wrong?"

Tears sprung to her eyes. Her vision blurred, she couldn't see him anymore. It was the simple question, the question that she had wanted Marius to ask her all afternoon, but he had not. She heard Grantaire shush the men around him. She couldn't see him, but she heard him climb off the couch and move toward her.

"Come here," he told her softly as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him. "Tell Uncle R what's wrong, sweetheart."

He was joking with her and she didn't know why. Éponine was not the type of girl to burst into tears over something stupid. She hadn't realized that she was shaking until she was held tight against Grantaire's very still chest. She could feel herself shaking in his arms. She opened her mouth, prepared to tell him all about her afternoon picking out Cosette's engagement ring, but all that came out was a loud, shuddering sob. The tears streamed down her cheeks, one right after another. The entire world seemed to turn into a blur. The sights, the sounds, the smell. Everything was gone but the tears dripping onto Grantaire's chest and his arms wrapped around her shoulders.

"Shit, Ép," he whispered, holding her tighter, closer to him as her knees began to shake, threatening to give out from underneath her. She felt him turn, glance over his shoulder at the guys still sitting in their seat. "Can someone call Apollo?" he whispered.

He steered her toward the couch, ignoring the clumsy way she tripped over her own feet, and shoving Courfeyrac out of the way to make room for her. It didn't matter, once they were both sitting on the couch he had pulled her into his lap so that he could rap his arms around her. "Don't worry, Ép," he whispered, rocking her slightly as if she were a child. "Enjolras will be here soon."

She didn't know how long it took him to get there. She was still crying uncontrollably when he arrived. Each breath coming in shaky and uneven, and leaving in a wrenching sob. Her chin trembled as if she were a child, she was gasping for air that simply would not come. Her throat burned.

"What the hell happened?" she heard him ask, his voice cracking through the still air. Éponine sniffed as she lifted her head from Grantaire's chest, blinking as she turned toward Enjolras. He was glaring at Grantaire and Courfeyrac as if they were the ones who had hurt her. His hands flailed a bit at his sides, as if he wanted to reach out for her, but he stopped himself before he could. "Éponine, what happened?"

She closed her eyes, embarrassed when more tears slid down her cheeks. "I should have said no," she told him, sobbing, she wondered if he could even understand her. "I should have said no. The ring," she shook her head. "The ring was so beautiful. And the woman - the woman thought that I was his girl-girlfriend."

Grantaire's arm was still wrapped around her shoulders, "All I got from that was _should have said no_ and _ring_."

Enjolras's jaw clenched. He took a step closer to them, his brows furrowed. "Can you guys give us some room?" he asked, his gaze darting around the group.

She heard them moving, she couldn't look away from Enjolras, but she assumed the boys had moved their chairs back. All of them except for Grantaire who kept his arms wrapped around her.

Enjolras cleared his throat, "I meant leave," he told them, his voice leaving no room for argument.

"I don't think -" Grantaire started.

"She won't be alone," Enjolras cut in. He sat down next to her, just as close as Grantaire. She felt his arm slip around her back, gently pulling her away from Grantaire. Gone was the smell of Grantaire's paints and scotch. Now all she could smell was sandalwood, the leather band of his wristwatch, the fancy soap he kept in his shower, and old books.

He wasn't as comfortable as Grantaire was with holding her. His arms were stiff, he sat a little too straight. But as she leaned into him, her hands clutching at his shirt, pulling him closer to her as she pressed her face into his chest, she felt him relax a bit. One of his hands lifted to her head, his fingers running through her hair. This was the first time he had ever done it consciously. Without saying a word Grantaire moved away from them.

He held her for a minute before he spoke again, allowing her breathing to slow down, her sobs to quiet. She was still crying, but she was calmer now. "You want to tell me what happened?" he asked her, his voice a whisper.

She sniffed. "He's going to ask her to m-m-marry him," she told him, stumbling a bit over the word _marry_. "He's going to ask her to marry him. And she's going to say yes. And I'm going to have to go to their wedding and be happy for them while my best friend is marrying the man of my dreams."

If he thought that she was being overdramatic, he didn't say anything about it. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, pulling her closer to him. "Oh Ép," he sighed quietly. "You had to know this was coming," he continued. "Just a few months ago you were telling Cosette that she and Marius were going to be together forever as long as they weren't morons."

"I know," Éponine told him with a sigh. Her nose was running, she sniffed, trying to hold it in. She felt Enjolras sigh and his arm lifted, silently providing her with the sleeve of his jacket like he had done before, the very day he was talking about. She grabbed his wrist and brought it closer to her face, wiping her nose with it. "But I thought it was going to be years from now. She's only a junior. God! What if they get married before graduation and he moves in with us!"

"You won't have to deal with it," Enjolras told her, his voice determined.

"Like hell I will," Éponine argued. "He'll be there when I wake up, he'll be there when I go to sleep. He'll be there all the time. So close, but so much further away then he is now. And I helped him by helping him pick out the most perfect, beautiful ring for her. And I can't even hate her for it!"

"That's not what I mean," Enjolras told her, his fingers still running through her hair. "If he moves in with Cosette, you'll move in with me."

That shocked Éponine enough that the tears stopped flowing for a moment. She lifted her head from his chest and she shook her head, "I can't ask you to do that, Gabriel," she whispered to him.

"You didn't have to," he told her. "You don't have to. So take that worry off the table."

Éponine shook her head, "You must think I'm so ridiculous." She felt him shaking his head, even though her face was pressed against his chest again. She laughed, bitterly, "You yourself just said that I should have seen this coming." She sighed. "I mean, he is in love with my best friend. He's been in love with her since the day he met her. And I'm the idiot, who's stood on the side lines, loving him, waiting for him to notice me, and breaking my own heart the entire time. If I were smart I would have put an end to it a long time ago."

"You're not stupid for loving him," Enjolras told her, his voice gruff. "I told you that already."

"But I am stupid for continuing to do so," Éponine told him, still laughing bitterly.

"And he's stupid for never seeing you, Éponine," he told her, his voice harder than it had been before. He was silent for a moment, she knew he wasn't good with emotions. These gruff, awkward words meant more to her than anything anyone else could have said because she knew how hard it was for him to express them. "Why did you go, Ép?" he asked her after a minute. "He must have told you what he wanted your help with."

"He did," Éponine agreed with a sigh. "And that's what makes me even more pathetic. He told me and I went anyway. I told him that it wasn't a good idea, but he was all _Nina, please? I need your help Nina_ -"

"Éponine," Enjolras interrupted correct Marius even though he wasn't there to hear it.

In spite of her tears, Éponine smiled.

* * *

 _I'll throw  
_ _my  
_ _voice into  
_ _the stars and maybe  
_ _the echo of my words will  
_ _be written for you  
_ _in the clouds by  
_ _sunrise.  
_ _All I am trying  
_ _to say is:  
_ _I will love  
_ _you  
_ _through the darkness._

 _Christopher Poindexter_

* * *

Author's Note:

Boom! Another chapter in the books.  
I know, I know ... you guys probably thought that I had forgotten this story. But I promise you that I hadn't.  
It's just this ... these chapters are long, and they don't always come easily. I love Éponine and Enjolras and I adore Enjonine, and because of that I **really** want to make sure that I'm getting them right, that their slowly building romance is believable, relatable, and not too rushed.  
And that takes time.  
But the chapters will keep coming. And I hope you guys keep enjoying them.  
Anyway ... thank you for stopping by and reading. Thank you for adding this story to your alerts lists, your favorites lists, thank you for the reviews we both know you're going to leave me!  
And a **HUGE** thanks to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter. Every time I began to think that I was in no way equipped to continue this story, I read your reviews and kept going. So thank you for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 _Guest (1):_ Thank you so much for being my first reviewer on this story! I'm so glad that you enjoyed (most of) the first chapter! I know the Christmas scene was a bit cheesy, but I needed it for Éponine's awkwardness at the beginning of this chapter. And with the time line, Christmas just worked. I hope it didn't make me lose you before this chapter!

 _LovingIsMyGame:_ Thank you so much! I'm so happy that you enjoyed the first chapter! Your review was AMAZING! So thank you! I hope that this chapter did not feel too long as well! As long as you keep enjoying every word, then I'm doing my job right!

 _Freyja:_ Don't worry, I know that not every body is going to love everything about this story. I took some artistic liberty with Marius in this story. He's not a serial romantic as much as someone who just falls in love a lot more easily than Enjolras.

 _Lost Girl 02:_ Thank you so much! I'm glad that you found the first chapter so interesting and I hope that you feel the same way about chapter two. I'm hoping that I still have most of the characters pretty well pegged, because if I do I still have plenty more to tell.

 _LadyFirefly88:_ And I love that you loved the first chapter! I hope that you enjoyed this one as well!

 _WashingAwaySins:_ More please? Well here you go! I hope that you enjoy it! Thank you so much for your review!

 _Jasmine:_ Jasmine  
I LOVED YOUR REVIEW! Thank you!

 _Guest (2):_ I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well! Thank you so much for reading (and reviewing!)!

 _GalanthaDreams:_ I'm glad that the first chapter was so satisfying! I hope this one was too! I would hate to let you down, especially since you think the "characters were done to perfection." That was seriously a **huge** compliment.

 _Hannahmb:_ Oh my god! Can I even put into words how much I loved your review? Thank you! I'm so glad that you enjoyed the last chapter and that you think I captured the characters perfectly. I hope I managed to do that again. I never thought that I would ever bring the Les Mis characters into the modern age, but I have to admit, the more I write, the more I love it.

 _hihiyas:_ I'm happy to provide it! You're welcome! Thank you so much for your review! I must admit, I read one of your stories the other day! They are magic!

 _prettyfuschia:_ That's why this story was written! I missed Enjonine too! There aren't a lot of Enjonine stories out in the world, I think I've read most of them. So I _needed_ a new one. And instead of waiting for someone else to write it, I decided to do it myself.

 _saigoncat:_ Thank you! I hope you loved this chapter too!

 _Tsume Yuki:_ Thank you! I'm glad that you enjoyed the last chapter. Don't worry about finding it late! I'm just happy you found it! Enjolras has always been one of my favorites, though I will admit I jumped on the Enjonine pairing train very easily. They're my OTP. And I'm so glad that it works for you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!

That's all I've got for now guys!  
Thank you so much!  
Until next time,  
Chloe Jane.


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